Through Shadow and Fire
by Wrath Flamesoul
Summary: A/U Sakura and Ino, two orphaned sisters from San Francisco, are new to Konoha, and have arrived just in time to enroll in the local high school, Fire Shadow High. The school year promises to be filled with drama, romance, humor, and maybe some insanity.
1. The Sisterhood of Mass Chaos?

**Disclaimer:** I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own any of the Naruto characters in this story. However, I have managed to endear myself to Neji by kicking Sasuke in both shins when he called Neji a loser. And then I endeared myself to Sasuke by giving him twenty pounds of tomatoes. Life is so sweet…

**Dedication:** To waking up one morning and realizing that every drop of sweat and blood you shed is suddenly worth where you are now. And to Reeanne, Courtney, Ashley, Daysi, Kraig, Jordan, Lincoln, Stephenia, Sonya, Sadie, Elpetha, Paige, and Anthony, for showing me that there really are people out there who I can relate to, and for being my first real friends. You guys rule.

**Chapter One – The Sisterhood of… Mass Chaos…?**

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_Only holding your hand, we cross the freezing night…_

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It was a peaceful summer afternoon in Konoha. The sky was blue, the trees were green, and anyone who was foolish enough to walk to their destinations were finding that their shoes were not heat resistant, and that melting rubber hurt a lot. A light breeze traveled through the quiet city, but it was a dry breeze, so it really only helped melting shoes spontaneously combust. A rather humorous scene for those who were smart enough to drive or stay inside.

The lulling peace was suddenly and violently shattered on one Pine Street **(A/N: Well, it is Konoha, after all. I don't think there are many non-plant-themed street names)**. The raucous beating of drums and wailing of guitars came from a white two-story Victorian house with a huge front lawn and a beautiful flowerbed in the area between the front and back yards. Inside the Victorian's garage, a teenage girl with flower-pink hair and bright eyes the color of sea foam danced to the deafening music that was the Nightwish record "Dark Passion Play". As Whoever Brings The Night blared into the hot summer day, fourteen-year-old Sakura Haruno's white tunic shirt and loose black capris flowed with her every movement, making her look almost elegant.

Her friend, Ino Yamanaka, finally came outside and shut the music off after the fifth time the CD had rotated through all the songs and gotten back to The Poet and the Pendulum, grinning when the rosette stopped midair and promptly fell on her butt.

"Hey, Forehead," Ino laughed, "I don't know if you noticed, but today's the seven-day mark. We only have one more week until school starts. You know, high school? The big leagues? All those Jocks…?" She laughed again and dodged the shoe Sakura pitched at her, cringing when she heard it hit the medicine cabinet on the other side of the kitchen. **(A/N: What? Am I the only one who keeps medicine in the kitchen anymore?)**

Sakura glared playfully at her friend as she took off her other sneaker and walked barefoot into the house – pausing to grab her Nightwish CD from the radio.

Sakura lived with Ino in the home that had been left to them in Inoichi Yamanaka's will. Sakura was an orphan who had no memory of her parents and had been adopted by the Yamanakas when she was six. When she and Ino were thirteen, Inoichi and his wife had been killed in a fatal head-on collision with a drunk driver, and with no other heirs, their family's money and property had gone straight to the two girls. The Yamanaka family was very well off in terms of wealth, and while a good sum of the inheritance money went to the usual food, house, clothing, and luxury funds, most had been put away for the girls' college fund. They both planned to go to Sonoma State University in California once they were out of high school, and that wasn't some cheap little community college. Both girls also worked part-time at a nearby Starbucks – Ino on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and Sakura on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday afternoons – and Ino's aunt in Florida helped them out when money was tight (something that usually only happened when they'd blown the money they earned from Starbucks on stuff they didn't truthfully need, such as new iPods and cellphones to join the other seven or eight they each owned).

Just a year before the crash, as a present to the two girls, Inoichi and his wife had decided to move to the peaceful, secluded town of Konoha from their much noisier and crowded home in San Francisco, California, where the couple worked as lawyers. While the girls had never complained about their close-quarter neighborhood and had thoroughly enjoyed the more than 200,000 dollar yearly income their parents brought in each year **(A/N: It's true! Go look up the average yearly salary for lawyers in San Francisco!)**, the Yamanakas could tell that Sakura and Ino needed a more open, close-knit atmosphere **(A/N: And the city I molded Konoha after in this story PWNS SAN FRANCISCO SO EPICLY IT COULD SET THE ENTIRE CITY ABLAZE!!!)**

True to their parent's wishes, as soon as they'd graduated the eighth grade, Sakura and Ino had enrolled themselves at Fire Shadow High, the largest high school in the area with a student body of over two thousand and a staff count of eighty-five.

"Ino-Pig," Sakura sighed as she gathered the shoe she'd thrown off the counter, "One week until we grow up is not what I wanted to hear right now. We're new here – no one even knows us yet. I know you're probably not nervous—" —a quick smile at the memory of all the rough spots where Ino's bubbly personality had saved them both from embarrassment— "—but I am."

Ino threw her arm around Sakura's shoulders, nearly throwing the poor rosette to the floor in the process.

"Aw, don't worry about it too much," she laughed as they marched upstairs, "I'm sure there will be tons of guys who find your shyness quite endearing."

"I'm not shy!" Sakura protested loudly, throwing Ino's arm off, "I just don't like not knowing people. And so help me, Boar, if you try to set me up on any blind dates, I will tear your arms off and feed them to Mr. Fluffers!"

The white and black cat in question lifted his head and gave both girls and cold blue stare, as if to say, "I will _not_ lower myself to eating _that_."

Mr. Fluffers was not a very playful American Bobtail – it might have had something to do with the horrible name Ino had chosen for him. He did tend to cringe when he heard his name spoken aloud, especially when there guests in the house.

"I still say that cat hates you, Ino-chan," Sakura sighed, walking into her room, "I told you we should have named him Yin. Then we could have gotten another cat and called it Yang!"

Incredibly, Mr. Fluffers actually nodded and followed Sakura into her room.

Or, at least, he attempted to follow Sakura into her room. He was intercepted by Ino, who picked him up before proceeding to give him a near-fatal bear hug that made him squeak.

"But Mr. Fluffers is so_ fitting_!" Ino squealed, swinging the poor cat around in circles, "It's not my fault he's got such long, fluffy hair!"

Sakura was tempted to go and rescue Mr. Fluffers from her sister, but the sound of an angry yowl, followed by a high-pitched screech and the sound of an angry teenage girl charging downstairs to get the Neosporin made her rethink that plan. Obviously, Ino was no match for a cat. Sakura made a mental note to buy some salmon for Mr. Fluffers when she went grocery shopping on Friday.

Now that Ino was too busy fixing her wounded… whatever Mr. Fluffers had clawed all to hell… Sakura had enough peace and quiet to start on one of her favorite pastimes: writing. She had started writing free-verse poems and random essays when the Yamanakas had passed away, finding comfort in the ability to vent her feelings through literature that didn't have to ever be read again for the pain to begin to ease. After she had finished grieving and begun to move on, she still found herself seated on her bed as she was now, typing out words to release any emotions she didn't want to deal with. Her fingers danced across the keys as she began to type…

_I am not shy. I do not need the support of others to stand alone._

_I am not weak. I do not need to hide behind anyone._

_I am not afraid. I do not run from my problems._

_I am not careless. My heart does not rest on my sleeve._

_I am not stupid. I do not need someone to tell me I'm something to know that I am._

_I am not desperate. I do not seek boys or perfumes to validate myself._

_I am not a lamb. I do not blindly follow the orders of others._

_I am not nervous. I have nothing to fear from my new surroundings._

She paused, reading through what she had just written. A smile lit her face, and she shook her head as she saved the file under the name "8-10-09".

I'm so emo… Sakura thought, silently mimicking the way Ino would say it if she ever saw that poem. The writing had done the trick – for now, at least, Sakura was freed from any previous anxiety, and she charged downstairs to help Ino recover from her "war wounds" in a much lighter frame of mind.

**»»««**

That night, after dinner (Ino had "food duty" that week, so of course Sakura insisted she go get MacDonald's instead of trying to cook and accidentally starting a nuclear war), Sakura and Ino had decided that they should play their own version of Battleship. The rules were the same, except for one tiny little change: every time one of them lost a battleship, they had to try to sing a song of their opponent's choosing. Since both girls enjoyed multi-language music, this made for an interesting game.

Ino was the first to lose a ship, and was forced to read the lyrics to "Mitternacht" by E Nomine while Sakura danced to the instrumental version. After losing two more ships and having the sing "Boten Anna" by Basshunter and "Fruer Frei" by Rammstein, Ino managed to sink one of Sakura's ships and forced the poor girl to sing Caramelldansen and dance to it. Mr. Fluffers merely watched from atop his kitty condo, an amused smirk on his whiskers.

After awhile the girls simply gave up on the game because they'd run out of songs that only one of them knew the words to. Unperturbed, Ino stationed herself in front of the television set and flipped to Spike, squealing when she saw that Spike's Most Outrageous Videos was just starting. Sakura settled for going back upstairs to her room and surfing the Internet, stopping at random forums and proclaiming her love of her favorite anime characters (Kaname and Zero from Vampire Knight and Goku, Gohan, and Yamacha from Dragonball Z) in between flame wars with anti-animetards (you know, those morons who usually have a poor grasp of grammar and spelling, but who loudly proclaim that "anime iz 4 n00bs roflcopter!!!1! U guys, shuld lissen 2 REEL stuf, leik American Idol!!!"?). When she'd been booted off of pretty much every server she'd gone to, she decided to watch some movies on YouTube, and spent about an hour playing and replaying nigahiga's Ninja Glare video and staring at nigahiga like a kid whose tongue's been frozen to the window of a candy shop.

At some point, the rosette ended up falling asleep, and Ino had to go into her room to turn off the blaring talents of nigahiga before she and Mr. Fluffers went to bed.

**»»««**

Two days later, Sakura was down at Starbucks, harassing any customers that didn't give Ino more than a two dollar tip. This exercise was cut short when the manager managed to gather enough courage to go out and tell the possibly insane girl to either order something or leave. As soon as Sakura turned to get in line, Ino "accidentally" tripped over the manager's shoe, spilling coffee all over the woman's shirt. However, since the manager herself had a habit of flirting with some of the male customers, no one really bothered to help her. In fact, the place suddenly had more business a few minutes afterwards (ah, the beauty of text messaging (when it's used properly)), so the manager cut her loses and stormed righteously off to her corner.

Sakura ordered a hot chocolate with extra chocolate syrup (Ino pulled many favors for her sister, and vice-versa), then went over to one of the freakishly high table-and-chair sets next to one of the windows, whipped out her laptop, and started writing again. Today she had awakened with the strange and furious urge to start writing – not a poem or essay, but a novel. She was just writing up the first character, a boy named Hikaru, when she sensed someone walk into the now mostly-empty store (she had to admit, the afternoon rush was pretty easy at Starbucks, one reason why she and Ino had taken only afternoon shifts there). She looked up, more out of habit than curiosity, and her fingers immediately froze on the keyboard.

Three boys had walked in, joking with each other about something they'd watched – Sakura felt a twinge of pity for the poor moron who had decided that jumping off the top of a vending machine would be a good idea, but then her focus was immediately redirected to the boys themselves.

The loudest and silliest one was a boy with tan skin, blond hair, and cerulean blue eyes that seemed too old for his boyish face. He was wearing a bright orange shirt with red and yellow patterns on either shoulder, black baggy pants with tears in the knees and one shin, and orange converse. He held a black iPod in his left hand, and around his neck hung a blue sword-shaped crystal on a black cord. He seemed to have whisker-like marks on both sides of his face, but Sakura was too far away to tell.

Behind him was a boy – er, at least, she thought it was a boy, but his/her features were too defined and even to be sure – with long brown hair, which he kept tied at the base of his neck in a loose ponytail. His skin was pale, almost ivory in color, and his eyes were an eerie light violet color that almost looked white. He wore a simple white button-down shirt and black jeans that actually fit, completing the outfit with black Adidas.

Under the blond boy's arm, looking thoroughly murderous at the contact, was the one Sakura had seen first, a boy with black hair, black eyes, and light peach-colored skin. His face looked like it was permanently frozen in an irritated scowl, but that somehow only made him more attractive to Sakura. It took a little effort for her to make herself look at what he was wearing – a dark blue button-down shirt (with the top button undone, she was happy to add), dark blue jeans, a bondage ring belt (A/N: Must… Have…) and black converse – but she wasn't really trying because she cared about his clothes. At the moment she was too smitten with his face…

And then those dark, piercing eyes of his flicked to hers, burning with an intensity that was as frightening as it was alluring.

Immediately Sakura looked back to her laptop screen, feeling her face heat up in a mortified blush. How could she have been caught gaping? How could she have been gaping at all?! That was the sort of thing Ino did while she looked on in quiet amusement!

She tried to ignore the comments he and his friends made to each other as they waited for their orders to be filled, but there was no ignoring the way Ino's "deviant" aura started flaring. Sakura could almost hear her sister inwardly scheming up ways to set up a blind date with the dark boy.

But, surprisingly, her friend said nothing, and gave the boys their drinks with no more of the normal sparkle and flirtation than she graced most of her customers with. Slowly, Sakura's hopes began to rise. Maybe Ino wasn't up to anything, and the boys would go on their way and she'd never have to look at them again and relive the shame.

And then all three of them started towards the table next to hers, with the black-haired boy sitting in the chair closest to her. Oh cruel, cruel fate.

They were so, so close… maybe if she hid behind her hair, she could get a better look at the boy next to her? No, come on Sakura, fight the urge! She ordered herself, Just don't look at them and you won't embarrass yourself any more than you already have…

A few minutes later Ino joined her, toting along another hot chocolate and a mocha frappe.

"My shift's over," the blond announced with a sigh, "So I guess when you're done writing your emo poems we can go home." She shot Sakura a wicked grin before chugging down a third of her frappe.

So much for not embarrassing herself even more.

"It's not emo," Sakura hissed, "It's deep. It's connected to meaningful things, unlike most of the shows you watch and the magazines you read."

For once the scathing warning went unnoticed – pfft, for once? Come on Sakura, really? – and the blond continued grinning. Sakura recognized the evil gleam in her friend's eye exactly a second too late to stop the coming chaos.

"Ah, so you're secretly checking out the dark-eyed cutie over there, then."

For one horrifying second, everything was very quiet and still, like the calm before the storm. Sakura had absolutely no idea how to respond to what Ino had just said, and she sure as hell wasn't going to look over at the table next to her to see how they were reacting.

Hide behind your hair, Sakura… Just hide behind your hair…

At the table next to her, there was the strangest sound, like someone was simultaneously laughing and choking on their drink. Sakura would have bet her next paycheck it was the yellow-haired boy. She also would have readily bet that the following thunk and the resulting hiss were the dark boy kicking said blond in the shin. Hard.

"Ino," Sakura murmured very quietly, "I think I'm done writing. We really should get home and feed Mr. Fluffers."

Translation: Boar, if you don't get your sorry ass outside in two seconds I will kick it all the way to next Tuesday. Then I will feed whatever's left to your stupid cat.

Ino thankfully took the hint and glided down from her chair, winking at the dark-haired boy before sweeping out the door, a very, very irritated rosette in tow, muttering death threats and something about "ninja glares" as she walked.

The three boys watched with varying levels of amusement as the two sisters exploded into a screeching catfight just past the parking spaces in front of the shop.

**»»««**

"Ino?"

"Yeah, Forehead?"

"We are never, ever speaking of what happened this afternoon."

"Sure thing, Forehead."

…

"Ino?"

"Yes?"

"…You're an asshole."

"That I am well aware of, dear little misfit sister of mine."

"Go choke on Mr. Fluffers' hairbrush."

"Go lick a toilet seat."

…

"What were we arguing about, anyway?"

"Beats me. Hand me the remote – Spike's Most Outrageous Videos should be on now."

* * *

**A/N: Three thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven words and six pages… I hope you're happy…**

**The lyrics are from Kimi Ga Ita Monogatari, a song from .hack//Liminality.**

**I love this story, and it's only chapter one! XD And about the name of the high school… Remember in chapter 137, when the Third Hokage is dying? On pages seventeen and eighteen he says, "To where the leaves dance… and the fire burns… The shadows of fire illuminate the village… And a new leaf sprouts." So… There you go. Tada! Another chapter will be up… Whenever the hell I feel like updating. Nya.**


	2. Both Eyes Open

**Disclaimer: **Unfortunately, I was forced to choose sides when Neji and Sasuke got into a fistfight over the last piece of sushi. Sasuke and I are not currently on speaking terms, but I'm hoping this batch of tomatoes will solve the problem in time for me to be able to go to school without with fear that I'll come home and find everything drenched in blood…

**Dedication: **To looking back at every person you thought you could trust, to every lie you ever swallowed, and realizing that while you will never forgive the traitors who hurt you, in some small way, you owe them everything for showing you how to move on and survive on your own.

**Chapter Two – Both Eyes Open…**

**

* * *

**

_I hate to say it but it has to be said – you look so fragile as I mess with your head…_

_

* * *

__Sakura was fairly certain she was dreaming._

_It wasn't because there was a white fuzzy border around her vision, nor was it because she forgot any sensation of touch, sight, sound, or smell in the instant after it vanished._

_No, the reason she knew she was dreaming was because she was running… And she didn't have any idea why. All she knew was that her nerves were singing, screaming warnings to her with every flying second, urging her aching body to run faster…_

_She was in a dark forest, the surrounding landscape painted in rich blues and purples. The trees were like huge clawed hands, black and silver in the cold moonlight as they seemed to reach out of the ground to snare what light they could. Shadows danced across the ground, creating cold patterns on Sakura's skin._

_From behind, she could hear what sounded like the footfall of some four-legged animal coming steadily closer. She tried to run faster, but she was already out of breath, and her muscles screamed for her to stop and rest. At some point, she started screaming, too, crying out in an animalistic mixture of fear and frustration – why couldn't she run any faster?!_

_Suddenly, there was a shock of red-orange light up ahead, it's rays shooting spears of warmth into the frigid night. Encouraged, Sakura sped up, ignoring the screaming in her calf muscles as she raced towards the only hope she could see for miles…_

**»»««**

On Tuesday morning, the sun rose in a sky painted shades of gold and red – a bad omen for those who knew the old adage sailors used. One such sailor started running back and forth on the street, screaming, "Repent!!!" as he did so. He was quickly taken down by the nice people from the psycho ward.

At the Yamanaka house, however, things were very calm and peaceful. Ino had her head buried in her pillow, with the latest issue of People magazine sprawled across her stomach. Mr. Fluffers (who had initially tried to chew his way out of the stupid crib the psychotic blond female had put him in) was sleeping, too, although that may have had something to do with the clog Ino had finally pitched at him when his escape attempt had lasted for more than an hour.

Ino's room was typical for a hyper, eccentric teenager like her, painted hot pink (even brighter than peppermint Pepto-Bismol) with black accents, the floor covered in shoes, clothes – both worn and newly-cleaned – magazines, school books, movies, and anything else she was too "busy" to put away correctly. Her cell phone lay next to her hand, a clear indicator she'd been texting with any poor fools who had been foolish enough to give her their cell numbers. The bed she claimed to sleep on every night was crowded with three magazines, Ino, her cell phone, twenty pounds of cat hair from "brushing" Mr. Fluffers (though with the bows and hair clips he usually ended up sporting afterwards, Sakura thought "torturing" was a better term for it), a movie, two DVDs, and a Within Temptation CD.

Across the hall, Sakura's room was a much different and calmer sight. The walls were sea green, a shade just a little bluer than her eyes, and the trim was white. Her bed was neat and orderly, and her white carpeted floor was nearly spotless, save for the shoes she'd kicked off before turning out the light next to her bed. Her laptop, for once, was on top of her bookshelf, possibly chatting with her Stephenie Meyer and Tamora Pierce books. Across the room from her bed was a work desk littered with sketches and rough drafts for her story.

The peace in both rooms was so lulling, so nice after the usual chaos that reigned in the household…

_Beep… beep… beep… beep… beep… beep… bee-CRACKSMASH!!!_

…So utterly shattered when Sakura destroyed yet another alarm clock for going off at a time that seemed far too early for her sleep-deprived mind. Slowly, she began to wake up, the memories of last night's nightmare still fresh and vivid.

Golden light was just starting to stream in through her window when she finally sat up and stretched, drawing out the last traces of dormancy before padding to her dresser and pulling out a pair of stressed blue jeans and grabbing a long, lightweight asymmetrical shirt that was charcoal grey at the bottom and faded to almost-white at the neckline. The shirt was longest at the hems, and very subtly arched up in the front and back, so that at its shortest, the shirt still covered the majority of her jeans zipper. With her outfit, Sakura wore her white clogs, both of which had an intricate wine-and-leaf design made from tiny circular and football-shaped holes across the part of the shoe behind the toes.

Once dressed, Sakura went downstairs to try to find something to eat, hoping that Ino hadn't tried to cook anything and blown the kitchen up.

Ino was already at the dining room table, eating a couple of Pop Tarts and reading another of her magazines while Sakura rummaged through the refrigerator for the milk.

The blond was wearing dark blue flare jeans that hugged her thighs, a loud orange shirt with yellow, red, and white designs the looked like vines and flowers, and her black and red thongs (_sandals_, damn perverts). Her hair was still a little wet – though how she'd had time to shower was beyond Sakura. Ino stayed up even later than her sister, and yet she somehow was able to wake up before dawn and shower, dress, and get breakfast, all without falling asleep even for a moment.

Perhaps she'd drunk so much coffee over the years that she was simply in a constant state of wakefulness. Or it could be the bleach – Sakura was fairly certain Ino's hair didn't "spontaneously lighten up" every other year.

"We have Freshman Orientation today," Ino sighed as Sakura sat down with her bowl of cereal. "We'll need to leave in about fifteen minutes. Oh, and you're paying for your new alarm clock this time. I bought the last one."

"Sure," the rosette said around a mouthful of Cheerios, "I'll find one that's bulletproof."

She swallowed, then continued, "Orientation's _today_? I thought it was on Friday…"

"They sent me an email two days ago," Ino responded, "They had to move the date because a lot of the parents with freshmen were complaining that it was 'too close to the first day of school', and that their children would be overwhelmed."

Sakura just stared at her sister for a few seconds before a single "wow" left her mouth.

"I know, pretty stupid, huh?" her sister said, getting up and throwing her Pop Tarts wrapper away.

"Wait, how come you got an email and I didn't?" Sakura said, swiveling in her chair to watch Ino pad into the living room.

"Oh, I told them you'd be too busy writing emo crap to check your email very regularly, and that since I was always emailing people they should just use my address instead."

"Brat."

"Yeah, but you still love me. Now hurry up – we wouldn't want to be late, right? Besides, we'll need to find all of our classrooms, too." Ino turned and winked at Sakura before charging upstairs.

"Mr. _Fluffers! _Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!"

Sakura rolled her eyes, chugging the leftover milk from her cereal down before following Ino, screaming, "Run, Mr. Fluffers, run!" as she went.

**»»««**

"I really don't think that cat likes you, Ino-chan," Sakura said as she brushed her pink hair out in front of the bathroom mirror.

"Aw, he's just a grouchy widdle kitty-witty, oh yush, he is."

Mr. Fluffers was currently getting squished by Ino's trademark death hug, shooting Sakura a very frantic, "HELP ME!" look. However, since Sakura wasn't looking at him, she didn't see the look he gave her, and so the torture continued.

"You should put him down, I think," Sakura said, leaving the bathroom, "He keeps making weird choking noises – I think you're killing him. And hurry up with your hair, Ino Pig! We'll be stuck in those horrible lines some of the seniors were complaining about yesterday at Starbucks."

"Alright, alright," Ino grumbled, dropping Mr. Fluffers (who lay on the floor, gasping for air) and grabbing her Bag of Horrors, which was filled with such torturous objects as hairclips, hair ties, headbands, and – gulp – _extensions_.

Sakura, who never did anything more than brush and occasionally clip one side of her hair behind her ear – as she had today with a black alligator clip – ran like there was a ghost chasing her, grabbing poor Mr. Fluffers as she went. Once downstairs, Mr. Fluffers refused to stray more than three inches away from Sakura, and pretty much stayed curled up on her lap, too traumatized to move. Sakura was fairly certain the poor tom would need a kitty therapist if Ino didn't settle down soon.

The two watched Animal Cops Houston, hissing and growling at each new case and purring – at least, Mr. Fluffers purred while Sakura cheered – when the bad guys went to jail or got fined and the abused animals found new homes. The end credits were rolling when Ino thundered downstairs, heading straight for the front door. Her hair was tied in a ponytail that rested almost at the top of her head, tied with one of those frilly hair ties that have triangles of cloth and strands of beads – in Ino's case, orange cloth and red beads – hanging from the band itself.

"C'mon, Forehead, we'll be late!" she screeched, wrenching the door open and charging outside. Sakura got up off the couch and kissed Mr. Fluffers on the head, promising to grab him some fresh salmon on the way home.

As soon as the pink-haired female had closed the door, Mr. Fluffers settled back down on the couch and pawed the "up" button on the remote until the television flipped to Spike. He wanted to watch 1,000 Ways to Die so that he could learn some ways to kill the blond one without getting the pink-haired one in trouble…

Muhahahaha…

**»»««**

"Ino, I don't think I can do this," Sakura muttered, fidgeting with the hems of her shirt. "We'll be in two separate lines!"

"Too bad, Forehead!" Ino growled, shoving Sakura towards the "E-H" line, "You've gotta learn how to be independent at some point in your life!"

Sakura turned to complain, but her sister was already headed towards the "Y-Z" line, stranding the nervous rosette in a line full of people she'd never even seen before today. What did these people do all summer, hide out in shadowy crevasses and sleep in coffins? How had she'd not seen this many people around town?!

She turned back to the line, moaning quietly to herself as she moved to stand behind a red head in skinny jeans and a tank top. At least her line wasn't horrendously long – she felt pretty sorry for the people in the "A-D" and "I-L" lines, both of which had barely moved at all in the last fifteen minutes.

The red head moved away, and Sakura gingerly stepped up to table, anticipating some rude remark about "punctuality" or "self-confidence" from a prune-faced old hag with an evil eye.

She was very, very wrong.

Instead of the creepy-looking old hag she'd pictured, Sakura found herself face-to-face with the dark-haired boy she'd seen at the Starbucks just yesterday. He was wearing a white button-down shirt, again with the top button undone, black jeans, and his bondage belt – unless this was one of several he owned. Best of all, he hadn't looked up at her yet, so she had time to compose herself before she asked for her schedule.

No need to make an utter fool of herself in front of this incredibly handsome boy.

…Or the other students…

"Name?" the teenager droned – the poor boy had obviously been here longer than he felt he should be.

"Haruno," Sakura said, managing to get the single word out without her voice trembling over the syllables. What was _he _doing here?!

The boy sighed and flipped quickly through the schedules, stopping when he found hers.

"Here," he said, handing it to her with what was probably supposed to be an automatic, cursory glance. He paused when he saw who she was, but before he could say anything Sakura hurried away from the table. The boy watched her go for another second, his dark eyes following her movement through the crowd of freshmen before he turned back to the next soon-to-be student.

Sakura went straight towards the bathroom, locking herself in the nearest stall once she'd arrived. The bathroom was totally unoccupied – well, it had been – because it wasn't the nearest one to any of the stations for schedules, pictures, or whatever else she would need before she left.

Perfect for anyone who needed to hyperventilate for a few minutes.

It was his _eyes _again – smoldering with the same dark intensity that had both terrified her and peaked her curiosity yesterday. At least then she'd had a reason to look away, had something to hide behind. Today she'd been able to hold the contact longer, but then what did she do?

She'd run, because apparently she was no better than the idiot girls in the horror movies she liked to watch. And even _they _had good reasons to run away.

And now she was hiding in an empty bathroom, trying to calm the nervous shudder that rippled along her spine. She was absolutely pathetic – enough so that she was still trying to sum up the courage to stop making the girls in the horror movies look brave.

It was a view more minutes before she was able to leave the bathroom, though her fingers were still shivering a little. She walked back into the gym, looking everywhere but at the table where the dark-haired boy was still sitting as she went to get her picture taken.

This time the line was huge, stretching out into the tri was the photographers fought with the students who didn't know how to follow directions. Within a few short minutes, Sakura was glad she hadn't worn makeup – she would have sweat it all off by now. And did the people in front of her have to wait so damn long to _move three inches_?

After about the fifth time she growled under her breath at the morons in front of her, she heard someone chuckle under their breath. The hair on her neck started to go up, even though it wasn't the smooth, cold voice of the dark-haired boy. This boy sounded almost _primal _when he laughed.

"The idiots in this line probably won't hear you growling at them," he said behind her, "They're all too busy with their iPods and cell phones."

The rosette whirled to face a surprisingly childish-looking teen with a red triangle on either cheek, tan skin, and brown hair. His black eyes danced wickedly at her as he took in her expression.

"Startle you?" he asked casually, "Sorry about that. My name's Kiba Inuzuka."

"Sakura Haruno," Sakura replied calmly, "Nice to meet you, Kiba."

Suddenly, a little bump in Kiba's sweater started moving up and around to the back of his head. A second later, a little white dog with brown ears appeared on the boy's head, barking and waging its tail.

"That's Akamaru," Kiba explained, jabbing his thumb at the fuzz ball, "He says he's happy to meet you, too." When Sakura gave him a questioning look, he explained, "Ah, I can talk to dogs. Or at least to Akamaru – I've never actually tried with any other dogs. Pretty weird, I know, but what can I do?"

Sakura smiled – at least Kiba seemed friendly enough, unlike a certain other handsome, truthfully frightening boy… She absently glanced at the "E-H", only to look quickly away when she realized the boy was still there.

"Checking out the Uchiha kid?" Kiba asked slyly.

"Is that the dark-haired boy at the e-through-h table?" Sakura asked curiously.

"Yep. Sasuke Uchiha, one of the two who survived that really ugly car wreck five years ago. His brother, Itachi Uchiha, attends the community college just outside the city limits. He could have gone to any university he wanted, but he stayed close to home so he could look after Sasuke until the twerp turned eighteen." Kiba's voice turned bitter when he said Sasuke's name the second time, peaking Sakura's curiosity.

"Twerp?" she asked.

"Kid thinks he's _so important _just because his family used to own Uchiha Corp.," Kiba explained, "When his parents died in that wreck, the corporation was shut down until one or both of the two kids decided to start it up again. That means Sasuke and Itachi still have loads of cash coming in just from their parents' wills alone. Hey, look, the line's moving up."

Sakura turned and hurried to make up the seven inches of free space before some morons decided to cut ahead of her. Now there were only a few people in front of her.

"So he acts like some big, important douche, and the teachers swallow it down because he's got the money and power to fire them if he wanted to," Kiba continued as if nothing had interrupted their conversation. "Seriously, if he mouths off to a teacher, they take it. If he starts one kid yelling because he called them stupid, the teachers tell the other kid to shut up. He could probably snort crack off his desk in front of one of his teachers and they'd pretend not to notice."

Sakura felt her eyebrows knit together. Sasuke didn't seem like the type of guy who took advantage of his wealth or power – he seemed unwilling to talk, sure, and he probably wouldn't do anything he didn't deem absolutely necessary, but she didn't see any of the corruption Kiba was accusing him of.

"It's you're turn, Sakura," Kiba muttered suddenly, a grin pulling at his lips. She yelped and hurried over to where one of the two camera operators was waiting with an exasperated look on his face.

"Gomen," she muttered timidly when he sighed at her harried approach. She sat straight and tall, trying to force the image of Sasuke's burning eyes out of her head as the woman behind the camera gave her instructions.

"Okay, now give me your best smile, sweetie," the woman said, just as Kiba made a sudden noise that sounded like an incredibly disgusting wet fart.

Sakura's self-control was tested as she fought to keep from bursting out in laughter, and the grin caught in her picture was as natural and amused as the woman had hoped for. Sakura managed to hold her laughter in until she caught the look on Kiba's face when it was his turn for his picture to be taken – the egotistical smirk, combined with his fart noise, made her control falter, and her laughter echoed off the auditorium walls.

Kiba was laughing with her as he walked away from the booth, and little Akamaru yipped and wagged his tail as if he was laughing, too.

"Looks like the mutt finally got himself a girlfriend," a cold voice said to the left. The hair on Sakura's arms stood up, though this was not the smooth, deeply potent voice of the dark-haired Sasuke Uchiha. This voice was eerie in its own way, cold and full of malice that seemed to b targeted at everything its owner deemed "unworthy".

She turned to see the long-haired boy that had been with Sasuke and the blond kid at Starbucks the day before. He was still going with the yin-yang theme, but today his hair was left loose, cascading down his back and around his shoulders like a curtain of deep brown satin. His eyes were cold and mocking, and seemed to appraise Sakura without ever leaving Kiba's face.

Beside her, Kiba growled low in his throat, a sound even more feral than his laughter.

"I'm surprised you're coming down from above to talk to us lowly humans," he snarled, turning to the boy. "Don't you have some poor, defenseless freshmen to be mortifying right now, Neji?"

Neji only smirked and made a low sound that was _sort of _like a mix between a grunt and a low chuckle. Then he locked gazes with Sakura, trying to intimidate her. Since his eyes were full only of disdain, it was much easier for the rosette to glare at him, a small snarl forming on her face. Much easier than even looking at Sasuke's eyes – whether he looked back or not.

The staring contest didn't last long – Neji broke off about a second later with a sniff, as if he was still utterly disappointed.

"She's _definitely _your type, Kiba," he sneered over his shoulder, "Right down to the growling."

_Growling? _Oh, that was the last straw. Fuming, Sakura took one step towards Neji…

…And was immediately tackled by Ino, who squealed like a little three-year-old who'd just found their long-lost teddy bear. The two girls ended up flying forward; in an attempt to save herself, Sakura grabbed onto Kiba's arm, pulling the poor boy with her as they toppled right into Neji. In the ensuing avalanche of bodies, several other students-to-be were sent flying, but no one else was trapped under Kiba and Ino, unlike… poor, unfortunate Sakura and Neji, for example…

"Ow," Kiba growled, rolling off the pile of Poor, Unfortunate Bodies. "Okay, what the hell just hap… pened…?"

Ino leaped up a second later, stifling hysterical laughter in the hopes that acting like she was totally mortified for Sakura would save her from the thrashing Sakura would give her once they were home.

Neji had somehow landed on top of Sakura, who was turning a very interesting shade of red as she stared up at the equally-mortified and infuriated expression on Neji's face.

"That was totally Ino's fault," Sakura said defensively, "I was only following the momentum. Honest."

Neji very obviously didn't buy that, if the icy, I'm-going-to-make-your-first-day-of-school-hell glare he was giving her was any indication of his mood. He stiffly got to his feet, not even bothering the offer to help her up before he walked away – or maybe flounced was a better word for it. It was a very graceful and dignified stomp, in any case.

"Nice going, Blondie," Kiba laughed as he offered his hand to Sakura. She waved it away, leaping nimbly to her feet in a move she'd picked up from some obscure movie or television show she used to watch.

"Like it was my fault Icicle Boy was standing right in the way of our crash course," Ino said with mock indignance. "He was just being a poor sport, anyway. He's probably the only guy who _doesn't _want to land on Saku- _Ow!_"

Sakura stomped away, growling under her breath as Ino clutched her now-broken nose in pain. Kiba and Akamaru very wisely decided not to stick around Ino – she seemed to cause trouble, and they didn't want another incident that involved running into – or falling on top of – Neji Hyuga.

**»»««**

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, a fact for which Sakura was grateful. After having the hell terrified out of her by Sasuke Uchiha, meeting the loud and feral Kiba Inuzuka, and being insulted, squished, and flounced-away-from by Icicle Boy, sh was about ready to pass out on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, she and Ino still had to walk home, so she would have to try to stay awake for another two or three blocks.

_Just don't think about your nice, soft bed, with the nice warm blankets and big fluffy pillow… _she thought drowsily. A lazy smile spread across her face, and her eyelids started to droop…

"_FOREHEAD!"_

"WHAT?!" Sakura screamed, startled out of her state of almost-sleepwalking by Ino's loud screeching in her ear.

"Look at the hottie over there!" Ino gushed, pointing off towards a black Camry with slightly tinted windows. Sakura let her eyes adjust to the darkness off the glass, then felt the air _whoosh _out of her lungs as she got a look at the driver.

He was probably in his late teens, early twenties, but he had the face of a supermodel. His long black hair fell around his shoulders, barely tamed by an extremely loose hair tie – what was still held in place by the elastic band hung limply over his left shoulder. His black eyes flicked from face to face to face, seeming far too observant for his otherwise laid-back expression. there were lines under both of his eyes, as if he was prone to worrying or over-exerting himself, and his shoulders were deceptively lean, as were his neck and arms. One incredibly delicate hand lightly rested on the steering wheel – the other was at his lips in a thoughtful gesture, his elbow resting against the bottom of the window.

She would have said it was an older version of Sasuke, but there was more maturity and cunning in this man's eyes than there were in Sasuke's – or perhaps they were the same, and she had only ever noticed the intensity in Sasuke's eyes because that was how he'd been feeling both times. This man was more beautiful though – more elegant, calmer than Sasuke.

And then his coal-black eyes settled on her face. Sakura could feel the blood leave her cheeks as she quickly turned away.

Intensity or not, Itachi Uchiha's eyes gave proof of his kinship to Sasuke.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, chapter two is up! Woo hoo!**

**The lyrics are from "I Almost Told You That I Loved You" by Papa Roach. "Mess" should be the "f" word, but I'm trying to keep the rating at PG-13. It's the same either way, honestly…**

**Yes, I do happen to think Itachi is hotter than Sasuke – because he is. AND HE'S NOT DEAD; HE'S JUST IN A MEDICALLY-INDUCED COMA. *sniff***


	3. Wolf and the Raven

**Disclaimer: **Neji and Sasuke decided to make up, so now they're back to hating each other without wanting each other to die! I'm so happy!

**Dedication: **To every random conversation and argument you get into, and to every friend who has accepted your craziness and will still be your friend no matter how many fights you get into. Especially dedicated to my newest friend, Gabby. You rule! (But I'm still mad at you. =3)

**Chapter Three – Wolf and the Raven…**

**

* * *

**_All that I'm living for, all that I'm dying for, all that I can't ignore alone at night…_

_

* * *

_Two days later, Sakura was working her Saturday shift at the local Starbucks, trying to forget what she'd seen and heard about the two Uchiha brothers on Thursday. The images of Sasuke's eyes and Itachi's overall grace and elegance would not leave her mind, and she wasn't sure whether that was a good or bad thing.

What made it worse was the way Ino would talk about the two boys to _every female costumer _who entered the shop, trying to dig up their addresses and phone numbers in the hopes of stalking them.

Sakura decided she would buy some incense and burn it in the hopes that praying for the Uchihas would keep Ino away from them for awhile.

It was an hour before her shift ended that Ino finally sauntered behind the counter and started harassing her rosette friend about the two boys, distracting the poor girl even more with the questions she asked and the obvious conclusions she was drawing at each of Sakura's responses.

"So, you made eye contact with _both _the cuties, huh?"

"Yes, Ino-chan."

"Did either of them… _make eyes_?"

"No, Ino-chan."

"Does this upset you?"

"No, Ino-chan."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Ino-chan."

"Who was hotter – Sasuke or Itachi?"

"I don't know, Ino-chan."

"Oh, come on! Pick! If they were both your age and both of them asked you out, who would you choose based on their looks?"

"…Probably Itachi-san."

"_Ooh, _you dog, you!"

"Shut up, Ino-Pig."

"Okay, now based on any other qualities, which one would you go for?"

"…I honestly don't know, Ino-chan. They both sound like pretty reasonable guys to me–

"Yeah, I'd probably do both."

"–But they both have such intimidating eyes, Ino. It's like you'll never be good enough for them to acknowledge you with more than a passing glance, you know? …Oh, and that was totally gross, Pig."

"What? I said 'do' not 'screw'. You're such a pervert, Sakura-chan."

While she finished that last sentence, Ino pocked her friend in the ribs, right when she was walking out from behind the counter to take yet another hot chocolate to the really smarmy business guy that comes in _every day _and orders the same thing, but gets insulted when you say, "The usual, right?"

Ino had chosen to forget that Sakura was painfully ticklish in her ribs (as well as her knees, neck, and thighs), and neither girl had noticed the two very ominous customers who had just walked inside…

"_Yiiipe!"_

The cup of hot chocolate flew into the air as Sakura flinched away from Ino's poke…

_Sploosh._

…And right onto the freshly-pressed white shirt Itachi Uchiha was wearing. What little drink didn't land on him ended up in his brother's face and hair.

There was a long, very deadly silence that filled the small Starbucks. No one dared to look at either Uchiha's eyes, and instead focused on the damage done to Itachi's (probably highly expensive) shirt.

Sakura would have murdered Ino under any other circumstances, but in this particular case her reaction was similar to what most people would have done.

Her wide, sea-foam eyes locked onto Itachi's cold black ones in an expression of horror and outright _fear _that could really only be rivaled by the gaze of an animal who knows it's about to die and wants desperately to try to run away, even though it can't.

Itachi's face was still very remarkably calm – considering he was drenched in scalding hot cocoa – though shock and anger were brewing visibly under that calm, which made his stunned silence even more terrifying than what everyone expected was going to happen once he'd recovered. His hands twitched, as though he was trying _not _to let them curl into fists. Behind him, Sasuke's face was far less controlled, twisting in such an animalistic fury that it was just as terrifying as His brother's stone appearance.

"Oops," Ino squeaked, shrinking behind her friend in fear. For once, even the blonde was scared – that in itself was a sign of the apocalypse.

"Oh my god," Sakura stammered, breaking the long second of silence, "I'm so sorry about that. My friend was goofing off… Oh man, I'm _so, _so, so sorry about that…" She fluttered around for a second, looking for something to try to clean some of the hot chocolate off Itachi's shirt… or at least Sasuke's still-enraged face.

"It's fine," Itachi said coolly, grabbing Sakura's wrist when she tried to go behind the counter for some napkins. "I've got another shirt in my car – this one wasn't expensive to begin with."

Sakura flinched at the sudden contact, expecting him to snap her wrist or something, but his grip was gentle, just enough to jerk her to a stop without dislocating her arm. She kept her eyes on his calm face, afraid to see the look Sasuke was busy giving her.

"A-are you sure?" she asked timidly.

He smiled – well, sort of, it was more of an upward twitch at the corners of his mouth – and nodded, then released her wrist and turned to leave the store.

His brother did not move, and lowered his head as though he was seriously considering taking a step forward to smack her. Itachi caught him by the shoulder and pushed him around before grabbing his shirt sleeve and dragging him outside.

As soon as the cheery little bell above the door jingled, Sakura whirled and half-ran into the back of the store, to the employee's bathroom, where she once again locked herself into an empty stall and had a nervous fit, alternating between hyperventilation and frantic giggle-whimpers. In this bathroom the stall doors stopped two inches above the ground, offering more privacy than the stalls at the high school, which allowed nearly two feet of space between the bottoms of the walls and doors and the floor. This meant it was safer for her to collapse onto her knees when she started shivering.

Again with the _eyes _– what was it with those two?! Did they practice looking so menacing in their mirrors or something? And then the look on Sasuke's face…

She focused on the one thing that had _not _been terrifying about the experience – Itachi's voice.

Where Sasuke's voice was eternally irritated, Itachi's was smooth and calm, like warm water running over smooth river stones. There was no suppressed malice in his voice – the emotions expressed in the tones he spoke in were very muted and light, proof that he was an expert at hiding what he was truly feeling when he needed to. The tone he'd used with her, for example, had held only the faintest traces of irritation; the most distinct quality had actually been the sincerity of what he was saying, and the gentle amusement at her frantic attempts to save his shirt.

And she didn't believe for one second that the shirt she'd ruined had been inexpensive – that thing looked like something only movie stars could afford to buy and clean appropriately. Sakura wondered idly if he'd send her a bill or something later on in the week for dry cleaning expenses.

When she was certain the last of the nerves had calmed down, the rosette rose shakily to her feet and left her stall, pausing to see how bad she looked.

Her face was flushed – which was better than the pale white she knew it must have been earlier – and her eyes were still wide with leftover shock, but otherwise she looked okay. No wayward hairs sticking out all over the place, no insane-looking facial expression that would make customers fear for their lives. She almost looked like she'd simply arrived with seconds to spare before she would have been considered late for work.

She left the bathroom and headed slowly for the closed door that led to the serving area, stopping when she heard three voices just on the other side of the door.

"Sorry about my friend," Ino's voice said nervously, "she scares easily."

"It's not like that's the first time someone's reacted that way," Itachi's voice answered pleasantly, "I seem to have that effect on a lot of people."

A third voice grumbled something that was too low, and there was a low thump and a hiss soon afterward.

"If you could tell your friend what happened isn't any big deal, I appreciate it," Itachi went on as if he hadn't just stomped on his brother's foot – at least, Sakura was pretty sure that was what happened. "I'd hate to think she'll be diving for cover whenever she sees one of us now."

His voice faded as he spoke, and there was a very faint _tinklink _of the bellas the two brothers apparently left the shop.

A second later, the door was ripped open and Ino very nearly crashed into Sakura.

"Forehead, you really should stop hermiting in the bathrooms," she giggled. "How will you ever score with the boys if you're hiding in the one place no male would dare to enter?"

"Shut up," Sakura groaned, "How mad did Itachi-san look?"

"Not mad at all, actually," Ino said, yanking her friend out of the hallway and closing the door. "He was very, very calm, Sakura – which was almost as scary, except he was smiling, so I think it's really okay. You looked like a deer in the headlights, though, when he caught your hand like that." She poked Sakura in the arm this time, avoiding another catastrophe. With the luck they had, the next person Ino made Sakura throw piping hot chocolate on would probably be the god of the underworld…

**»»««**

Sakura was more than ready to go home when her shift finally ended. The incident with the Uchiha brothers had left her visibly shaken, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep until everyone forgot about the whole thing.

_And just think,_ she told herself sarcastically, _On Monday you get to face Sasuke again! That'll be so much __**fun**__!_

If things went Sakura's way, she would have had time to brood over what had happened at the shop. However, the walk home was neither silent nor free of the memory of what had happened, mostly due to the fact that Ino wouldn't shut the hell up.

"He looked ready to kill you Sakura-chan!"

"Which one?"

"Well, Sasuke did, anyway… Itachi scares the hell out of me. What do you see in him, anyway?"

"Shut up, Pig."

"Although that was pretty cool…"

"What was?"

"When he grabbed your wrist, silly! What did his hand feel like?"

"It was warm and smooth."

"That's all? No 'warm water running over silken cloth'?"

"The hell?!"

"Hey, you wrote it."

Sakura stopped dead on the sidewalk in front of their house, staring with barely masked fury at her sister. She had written that line, alright – in her _diary_.

"That was about _Sasuke's voice_," she hissed.

"Awwww – _OW!_"

Sakura stormed inside, leaving Ino to sit on the sidewalk and clutch her nose in pain.

"Who the hell pinches a nose that's already been broken?!" she whined loudly, "Not cool, Forehead!"

Unbeknownst to the two bickering girls, Mr. Fluffers sat in the window, watching with quiet glee as the blonde one writhed about on the sidewalk. Was it wrong for the family pet to enjoy the agony of its owner? Mr. Fluffers didn't think so.

"_MR. FLUUUUUUFEEEERS!!!"_

Oh, God, no…

**»»««**

On Monday morning, Sakura was awakened from yet another strange nightmare. The only difference was that she had little memory of the dream itself, except that this time she'd been running toward a dark shadow instead of a bright fire.

_WAAAN, WAAAN, WAAAN, WAA-Clunk._

A weary hand shot out from under the bed covers and smacked the "off" button on Sakura's new bullet-proof alarm clock, which had such an ungodly grating alarm that it was impossible for the rosette to sleep through it. The sheets groaned and moved frantically, and suddenly Sakura's head popped out, sleepy green eyes staring at the time on the clock from Hell.

Six thirty-two. And school started at seven thirty. She smiled sleepily and curled up on her side, facing away from the stupid clock…

It seemed like it was only seconds later that something landed knees-first on the pink-haired teenager, screeching, _"FOREHEAD, GET UP!"_

Sakura was not generally inclined to think of herself as a violent person, nor did she enjoy getting into fights, but faced with a situation such as this, she could only react in the way any sleep-deprived teenager who put up with this sort of thing every school day would. She snarled a curse at her sister, then flung the blonde off in a move that also brought her to her feet next to her bed at its conclusion.

"_What, _Ino?" she snapped furiously. Her sea green eyes blazed emerald in her half-dormant state of fury.

Ino, who'd landed against a wall, stood up and rubbed her back with a glare of her own aimed at Sakura.

"That _hurt, _Forehead," she growled, "And it's already seven o' clock. If you don't hurry and get dressed, we'll be late on our first day of school!" She turned and stomped toward the bathroom, probably to fix her hair.

It took Sakura another second to calm down – her nerves had been shot since Saturday – and then she padded to her dresser and picked out something random, not really paying attention to the shirt and pants she grabbed. Luckily, she picked something that matched: a deep red shirt with a white and black rose on the front and black pants that she'd actually snagged from Ino the last time she'd done the laundry. The left leg of the pants had a white bejeweled design at the bottom – rhinestones glittered and lines that created an intricate vine-and-leaf design. Sakura slipped on the same clogs she'd worn to orientation and hurried downstairs, dragging her brush through her hair as she did.

They managed to get to school five minutes before the first bell rang. The two sisters stood at the tri and gave each other a killer bear hug before going off to their respective classes. Ino had pottery first period, while Sakura had to go straight to the gym for physical education with Gai sensei.

It was fairly easy to find the gym, since it was one of three buildings on the campus that had a mural painted on its wall. The mural depicted several star athletes engaged in the various team sports the high school supported. Girls and boys alike ran, kicked, jumped, and swung, all aiming for the shot or jump that would score their team the gold, and in the center of the chaotic victory scene, two students upheld a giant gold trophy as they stood on a raised platform with two Greek pillars.

The girl on the left of the trophy was a redhead Sakura did not recognize. She had no such difficulty identifying the boy on the right.

Slender, deceptively feminine arms and hands gripped the trophy's right handle and raised the massive cup off the ground. Black hair that was tied back in a normal ponytail hung over one shoulder, and piercing black eyes looked at Sakura with well-concealed arrogance.

The rosette suddenly felt very cold, despite the fact that the morning was already a very toasty sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. She did _not _need to see the painted likeness of a man like Itachi, who so thoroughly terrified her, every morning that she reported to the gym. She hurried inside, trying to control the shivers that threatened to ripple down her spine.

The gym was deafeningly loud, filled with the varying conversations of students from every class who had not seen each other for three months. For a moment Sakura was confused by the noise, unable to make sense of anything in this place where everyone felt they had to yell to hear each other. What made things worse was the size of the gym – it was large and empty enough that it would probably echo at the slightest sound.

"Are you looking for the Freshman class?" someone shouted to her left.

Sakura turned to face an elderly woman with curly black hair and a wrinkled face. Two wise black eyes stared at her from under the folds of the woman's skin.

"Yes," Sakura said, instantly the shy, overly-polite schoolgirl she always turned into every time she spoke to a teacher. "I'm guessing the Freshmen have their own side of the gym or something…?"

"Yes, that's right," the old woman said, "Right over there, sweetheart. Your class is in those bleachers." She pointed one gnarled finger to the bleachers on the exact opposite side of the gym. Sakura thanked the old woman, then fell into step behind another group of freshmen on their way to the bleachers.

The rosette was just getting ready to sit in the nearest empty seat when she heard her name.

"Sakura! Hey, Sakura, over here!"

She turned to see Kiba waving his hands over his head from where he sat, all the way at the top bleacher. Next to him was the blond boy Sakura had seen enter the Starbucks with Sasuke and Neji about a week ago. That boy was also waving, and a huge grin was plastered on his childish face. Sakura waved back at them, then started the long, treacherous climb up to where they sat.

"Hey Kiba!" she yelled when she'd reached them. She sat down, only to be crushed when Kiba threw one arm around her shoulders in a friendly bear hug. "Can't… breathe…" she squealed pitifully. He laughed and took his arm away.

"Sakura, I don't think you know my friend yet," Kiba shouted, indicating the blond on his other side. "This is Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto, this is Sakura."

Naruto grinned and said, "Hey, Sakura-chan! Is it true you threw hot chocolate on Sasuke?"

God damn it all. How small was this town, anyway?!

"Yeah," Sakura said guiltily, "But it wasn't my fault! My friend Ino poked me in the side – she knows I'm ticklish, and she was joking around about something – anyway, when she poked me, I kind of freaked out a little and the cup flew out of my hands."

"Right onto Sasuke!" Naruto laughed, "Boy, I wish I could have seen the look on his face! Ha!"

"Wait…" Kiba said slyly, "Sakura, I didn't know you were ticklish."

Before Sakura could react, Kiba started tickling her. Naturally, she reacted in a very violent (and hilarious to those watching) manner, almost falling off her seat and flailing her arms at Kiba, trying to make him stop.

"Kiba! Pffffft! Quit – ha ha – QUIT IT! Pfft!"

Finally the tickling was too much; the rosette lost hr balance and fell off onto the empty seat below – and against someone's legs. That someone grunted, stumbled to the side, then stepped firmly on the bleacher Sakura landed on, his foot falling loudly just a few inches from where her arm was. Surprised, Sakura looked up – way up – to see who she'd almost sent tumbling down the bleachers.

"Watch where you push her, Kiba," Sasuke snarled as he sat down, "She's embarrassed me enough already."

* * *

**Author's Note: Whew, this took forever to get done! That's what happens when you get your first job. Lyrics are from "All That I'm Living For" by Evanescence.**

**BAHAHA, I love tormenting Sakura-chan. And for those of you who may be getting a little confused, no, this will not be an ItaSaku story – though that's my crack pairing OTP, I am desperate to create a fanfiction which celebrates my all-time OTP, SasuSaku. So, please don't comment asking, "I thought this was SasuSaku – why do you seem to be going more towards ItaSaku/KibaSaku/NaruSaku?"**


	4. Face Your Fears

**Disclaimer: **Trust me when I tell you, I DON'T OWN NARUTO. I do, however, own Neji and Sasuke… and soon, very soon, I will own Itachi as well… Bahaha…

**Dedication: **To the chaos of being torn in two by your fears – of wanting the warmth and comradery of allowing others to know you, while at the same time wanting the safety and sureness of the dark hell that is solitude…

**Chapter Four – Face Your Fears…**

* * *

_How can I decide what's right when you're clouding up my mind? I can't win this losing fight, but you won't take away my pride – not this time._

* * *

Sakura was not a naturally timid or easy-to-scare girl, nor could she ever recall backing down in a confrontation. She laughed at horror films and loved gory, bloody movies, and she had always liked to think that, if she was ever faced by a thug with no one to help her, she would be able to fight and get away.

Now, faced with the irritation in the eyes of the dark-haired boy who made her blood run cold, Sakura was fairly certain that she was either the biggest coward on earth or being glared at by a vampire. Either option was bad news, so she opted to throw dignity out the window as she scrambled up to the seat next to Kiba and inched as far away from Sasuke as she could without it being too horribly obvious. She wasn't entirely effective – she heard Kiba's nearly-soundless chuckling, and felt it vibrate through his arm.

"Hey," Sasuke said suddenly, nearly making Sakura fall of the bleacher again, "Naruto, what classes do you have?"

Naruto took his mangled schedule out of his back pocket, folded it five times, then flicked it at Sasuke's face. The younger Uchiha caught the flying paper as though it was moving his slow motion, his own hand moving so quickly that at first Sakura wasn't sure he'd caught the schedule so much as swatted it into his other hand. But he turned the paper so that the open end of the fold was facing him without trading hands, which aroused a deep sense of awe in the rosette. She could barely catch with _two _hands, let alone snag something that small out of the air in such a nonchalant manner!

Kiba leaned over to read Naruto's schedule, which of course forced Sakura to lean over, too. She tried to focus more on Naruto's classes than on how close she'd suddenly gotten to Sasuke.

Naruto had Pottery (in room H-21) for second period, Computer/Careers in J-13 for third, World History in N-1 for fourth, no off-campus pass for lunch (which made Sakura a little smug – she'd had the foresight to check the school lunch menu, which was conveniently posted on the school website), English I in R-10 for fifth, and Pre-Algebra in M-3 for sixth. This meant the only class he shared with Sakura was first period P.E.

Drat, and she liked him, too. Not as a crush – it was more of an oh-look-at-the-cute-little-bunny sort of like, but still.

Sasuke refolded the paper and flicked it back at Naruto, hitting him square in the eye with one of the corners.

"Ow!" the blonde screamed, clutching his eye and falling down three rows before he was able to stop himself and crawl back up to the top row. "Sasuke, you're an asshole."

Sasuke only grinned (or bared his teeth, Sakura wasn't sure which) in response, causing the pink-haired girl next to him to cringe back against Kiba again.

"Sakura, what's your schedule look like?" Kiba asked. Humor colored his voice like a three-year-old with a sharpie colors every blank white surface he can find. Sakura glared half-heartedly at him, then turned to dig through her backpack for her schedule. When she found it, she handed it to the brunette, blatantly turning her back to Sasuke as she did so.

This didn't stop the boy from looking at her schedule – in fact, he leaned over her shoulder instead of emo-ing all over the place, as Sakura had hoped he would. She could almost hear Sasuke rolling his eyes when she stiffened involuntarily.

Her classes were a little easier to get to – each one was within a minute's walking distance from the class following it. Naruto would have to jog to get from Computer/Careers to World History.

For second period, Sakura had Computer/Careers in room J-9. In third period she had English II in R-10 (she had managed to convince the English department of her "higher abilities" in that subject by showing them flawlessly A grades in Literature from third grade and up), and fourth period was Algebra in M-3. She planned on going off campus – or, at the very least, using the vending machines – for lunch. In fifth period she had Art in H-11, and her last class was World History in N-2.

"Oh man!" Naruto bawled as Kiba handed Sakura her schedule. "Sasuke, you suck! How'd you get _three _classes with Sakura-chan?!"

Sakura froze in the middle of unzipping her backpack, and the skin on her arms went five shades lighter.

_No. No, no, no, no, NO! Naruto, I thought you were cool – don't say stuff like that! Please let him be joking, please, please, pleeeease…_

"Three?" Kiba growled, "Yeah right – let's see _your _schedule, Uchiha!" Sakura tried to keep her hands from shaking as she felt Sasuke's arm pass over her back to hand Kiba the piece of paper that would probably ruin her school year. She didn't sit back up until she saw Sasuke lean back out of the corner of her eye. Then she sat back and looked curiously over Kiba's shoulder.

Her stomach filled with lead as she went over what classes he had.

First period: P.E. Second period: _Computer/Careers in J-9_. Third period: English I. Fourth period: Drama. Fifth period: _Art in H-11_. Sixth period: World History.

…_I hate everyone. Especially whoever gave Sasuke his classes! _The rosette focused the majority of her energy on keeping her face smooth and calm as Kiba started to whine over the unfortunate news.

"Sasuke, damn it! Can't you switch Art and Computer/Careers around or something?!" Kiba flicked the paper Frisbee-style at Sasuke's face, only to watch the raven-haired boy snag it out of the air without even wrinkling the paper.

"Why?" Sasuke said tauntingly, "So you can have more time to flirt with your girlfriend without corrupting the innocence of my eyes?"

Sakura's depression suddenly vanished into thin air.

You see, there were many, many things the rosette would have taken in silence from Sasuke. She was a fairly tolerant person, and Sasuke and his (elegant, refined, lady-killing) older brother terrified her to begin with. Normally, she probably would have kept her mouth shut and fumed about it later. But the insinuation that she was ditzy and _girly _enough to suck face with a guy she barely knew _in the middle of class _was just a little too much for her to handle.

Fear momentarily forgotten, Sakura turned her coldest glare on Sasuke and said, "I know _you _deal with idiot girls who are more interested in sex than school work, but not _every _female is a ditzy little brat who wants to satisfy her hormones above all else, so if you could lay off the comments that make me sound like someone who's only paycheck comes from working on a corner, I'd appreciate it." For good measure, when she turned away from him, she made sure he heard the "chauvinistic little creep" she tacked on to the end of her miniature rant.

Naruto was already laughing and reaching in front of Kiba (who was staring at Sakura as though she'd transformed into Athena before his eyes) to give her a high-five. She returned it, feeling a little giddy from _finally _facing up to her fears – although she would probably hyperventilate later that night when the shock and adrenalin finally wore off. As it was, the thought of turning around to see how Sasuke was reacting set her on edge.

"_YOSH!" _A loud, booming voice thundered through the gym, deafening all of the students inside and shaking the banners proclaiming all of the student athletes since the school's foundation. The four freshmen (and everyone else on their side of the gym) turned as one to see who the voice belonged to.

Whispers of "ew" and "what the hells" seethed through the students.

"Greetings, youthful students!" Their apparent instructor was wearing a far-too-tight green sweat suit with black shoes and a red headband. He had a hideous bowl cut and a big nose, and his eyes were a little too small for his face.

Oh, and no human body should have been able to bend the way his was. Seriously, did his arms have three extra joints or something?!

"I am Gai Maito," the man continued to yell, "and I shall be your _youthful _instructor on your _youthful _journey throughout your _youthfully precious _first year of high school!"

"Who let Gumby in?" Kiba asked. Naruto snickered.

"This creep is irritating," Sasuke growled. Sakura could feel the hair on her arms rise up, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Was it her, or was his voice a _lot _closer all of the sudden?

While Gai-sensei boomed through the syllabus, Naruto, Kiba, and Sasuke continued to make fun of the over-eccentric man, even going so far as to ask questions the answers to which usually sounded horribly _wrong _the way Gai-sensei worded them.

Sakura secretly felt a little pity for the teacher. So he was hyper – since when was it a crime for the older generations to be happy and completely over-the-top?

Then again, the rosette's sister _was _slightly insane on her best days. Maybe she was so tolerant of obnoxiously loud people because she had to put up with Ino's normally injury-inducing antics on a day-to-day basis.

Finally, the bell rang, and students flooded down the bleachers and out the door, eager to get away from "Gai Psycho" (Sakura hoped for Gai's sake the nickname wouldn't stick, or at the very least that it wasn't new). For once in her life, Sakura separated herself from her friends and walked willingly into a throng of strangers, hoping to lose Sasuke before she was forced to share her next of three classes with him and praying he wouldn't somehow follow her through the confusion. Suddenly her "little creep" comment didn't seem like the most brilliant idea she'd ever had – though she wasn't about to take it back.

…Unless he told her to and glared at her while he did so. Then she would very gladly apologize and tell him she hadn't meant it. There was a difference between pride and stupidity, and the latter was more Ino's thing, anyway.

Thankfully, she made it to J-9 – Mr. Nara's classroom – without ever once catching sight of Sasuke. She paused outside the door to heave a quiet sigh of relief before walking inside the already-cooling classroom.

It was set up pretty much the same way she'd expect of any computer lab. There were two aisles of six tables each, and each table held three computers. The teacher's desk was in the _back, _though, something Sakura hadn't seen before. There were two whiteboards – the tables faced the substantially larger one, while the window-sized one on the side wall seemed to be used for notes, such as which students were tardy or failing, which students were truant, and so forth.

Couldn't he write that kind of stuff on little Post-Its? It seemed a little rude to write it where everyone would see it… But then, that could be how he motivated those students to quit fooling around and get serious.

Mr. Nara wasn't in the classroom; he was standing outside the door in the back, which the rosette assumed led to some sort of miniature hallway with rear entrances to the other J building classrooms. It sounded like he was talking to someone else, so she very quietly took the closest seat to the door. Once she was settled, she pulled out her current book, _Ravenspear_, and started reading at the spot she'd doggy-eared.

She'd read maybe a page and a half when she heard someone take the seat next to hers. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the metal pieces on Sasuke's trademark bondage belt reflect some of the fluorescent light coming from the ceiling.

_Oh. Hell no._

She was sure this was the end of the line. Sasuke was probably going to kill her – he seemed like the type to carry a knife or handgun or some other deadly weapons for occasions where his pride was stomped on. Sakura felt goose bumps rising on the back of her neck, but she refused to acknowledge him, foolishly hoping that all those lectures on how bullies would leave you alone if you ignored them also applied to that hot guy who probably thinks you're some sort of plague.

"Hey – Sakura, right?"

Sakura flinched at the sound of _his _voice speaking _her _name, and looked up to see Sasuke looking at her with what she _thought _was a mixture of amusement, irritation, and maybe a _tiny _bit of remorse.

"Yeah, that would be my name," she said. Darn, she was just getting to a good part; now she wouldn't be able to focus on it for hours! "Are you going to tell me I had no right to mouth off to you like that? Because if you are, I would suggest saving your breath – besides, you're interrupting perfectly good reading time, here."

Inner Sakura was about ready to strangle her for saying something so incredibly _stupid. _Not to mention suicidal.

The amusement in Sasuke's eyes grew, and a small smirk played at his lips. Oh, his lips… No! Bad Sakura! Bad! Where had that even _come _from?!

"Actually, I wanted to apologize," he said bluntly. "You were right; I was rude to assume you would be anything like Kiba's ex girlfriend. Although I'm a little shocked you spoke up, let alone looked at me without going pale. I thought I terrified you." His smirk turned mocking, causing Sakura's irritation to spike again.

"Fear has nothing to do with defending your honor," she informed him blithely, "Anyone with a sense of self worth would have piped up after having someone very subtly call them a slut." Then she very pointedly turned her back to him and pretended to start reading again.

"But you are afraid of me, aren't you?"

His voice was low and thick with something very dark and menacing; the faintest hint of amusement made his voice sound predatory, like the almost-seductive purr of a panther closing in on his prey. Not entirely sure she was meant to hear that, Sakura continued to pretend oblivion, though she was fairly certain he could hear the suddenly uneven thundering of her heartbeat as it echoed loudly in her ears.

The tension in the room lifted as more and more students filed in, talking and laughing as they fought over what each deemed to be the best seats. An extremely timid-looking girl with the same shockingly pale eyes as Neji Hyuga took the seat behind Sakura's, keeping her eyes on the monitor of her computer as she silently slid into her chair. To Sasuke's left, a girl with brown hair pulled into two buns sat with much more vigor, her brown eyes sparkling as she glanced eagerly around the classroom.

_Teacher's pet, _Sakura thought off-handedly. _Or computer wiz. Either way, I'm glad she's not next to me._

By the time the second bell rang to mark the beginning of the period, a total of about twenty-six students had charged in and taken command of their seats. Mr. Nara grudgingly finished his conversation and walked lazily into the classroom, coming to a halt before the rows and rows of tables.

Several gasps and murmurs resounded as the students got their first glimpse of their second period teacher.

His dark brown hair was pulled back into a really tight-looking ponytail that looked like it should have been tearing his scalp off. He had eyes that, despite the lazy set of his features, were sharp and leapt from each face as he took in his class. He was dressed in black jeans and a light green shirt with a jade green, lightweight vest on top. His most prominent feature were the two claw-sized scars on his face, one on the right side of his forehead and the other directly below it, on his cheek.

"Welcome to Computers and Careers," he droned in an almost monotone voice. "I'm your instructor, Mr. Nara. Today we'll set up your computer accounts. For those of you who already have computer accounts, please do something quietly."

Sakura had a feeling this would be a very, _very _easy class.

**»»««**

Computers and Careers was going to be a _long _class. After setting up their accounts (which took the entirety of five damned minutes), the students were allowed to surf the internet, write, read, or do anything else that involved _staying inside the classroom _and _staying very, very quiet. _Mr. Nara immediately fell asleep on his desk, so the students stayed as quiet as any teenagers on their first day of high school could manage to be.

Sakura spent her time reading some more of her book, trying to ignore Sasuke (though she knew he was listening to music and desperately wanted to know the site he'd found his songs on – she _was_ an incurable music fiend, after all).

The ignoring failed when Sasuke turned to her again and whispered, "What book is that, anyway?"

"_Ravenspear _by Evan Kale," Sakura whispered back, not looking up from the page she was currently on.

"What's it about?" Why the hell did he care?

"It's about a guy who can talk to ravens, but he doesn't know why until he finds an old mage who tells him he's 'held in the shadows' – whatever that means. That's as far as I am right now."

A short pause, and then, "So is it a good book?"

"Why do you even care-?" Sakura asked, looking up abruptly. She stopped when she realized how close Sasuke had been leaning to speak to her. Their noses were maybe an inch apart.

Not, mind you, that she paid any attention to his nose – her eyes were locked on his, and she would have cringed back, if not for the fact that she suddenly couldn't remember how to move. Or breathe. In fact, she was fairly certain every vitally important bodily function had just shut down. She certainly couldn't feel her heartbeat anymore.

Sasuke held her trapped like that for a second longer, and then he looked back to his computer screen and murmured, "No reason. I was just thinking I'd try reading it when you were done."

Sakura turned back to the book, willing herself not to shiver as second period dragged on into the depths of eternity.

When the bell finally rang twenty-some-odd minutes later, Sakura breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Morning break was one of two periods when she would be able to just hang out with Ino-chan… provided she could find the blond before she caused anything to explode or spontaneously combust.

And then the sound of Sasuke's cold voice to her left shattered her good mood.

"See you in fifth period, Sakura."

Before the pink-haired teen could turn to mouth off to the dark boy – or shiver and whimper mentally, more likely – the younger Uchiha left his seat fluidly, pushed in his chair, and left the classroom, fading in with the rest of the class as the students filed excitedly outside.

_Please don't let him find me during break or lunch, _Sakura begged silently. She walked sullenly out of the classroom, checking to make sure Sasuke was out of sight before walking quickly towards the tri.

Needless to say, she did a horrible job of scanning the area. From his place in the shadowy bay where his locker was situated, Sasuke watched in quiet amusement as Sakura tried to ninja her way towards whatever group of friends or aisle in the library she was headed for.

Not that he had a crush on her – after all, Uchihas didn't have "crushes", and the irritable younger Uchiha brother had far more important things to focus on than which girl would hang off his arm _this _month (being an egotistical bastard had its ups and downs, and the inability to hold onto any romantic relationship for more than a few weeks was one of the downs) – but the girl was… interesting, to say the least.

The quickly-becoming-trademark predatory smirk came across his lips again, parting them until one of his canine teeth showed.

**»»««**

"Sakura!" Ino screeched, tackling her adoptive sister as soon as the girl had climbed to the bottom of the tri.

"Ino… pig… can't… breathe!" Sakura squeaked, fighting in vain to escape the vice-like grip that was her friend's bear hug. It felt like the overly enthusiastic greeting had imploded both of her lungs and probably snapped some ribs.

"Sorry, Forehead," the blond girl said, not sounding sorry at all. She released her hold and the rosette crumpled to the ground like a deflated balloon.

"S'okay," the Sakura puddle whimpered.

"So," Ino said, sitting next to Sakura as she pulled herself together, "I heard from a very reliable source that you got three classes with the younger of the two hot stuffs. Is he even hotter up close, Sakura-chan?"

"Uhm, we don't actually sit next to each other in gym, and in Computer-Careers we're too busy working to look at each other much," Sakura responded, wondering if creative lying would make Ino leave her alone about the admittedly good-looking boy.

"Aw, come on! At least tell m if he _smells _as good as he looks!"

Apparently not – wait, did the moron just say what Sakura thought she just said?!

"Uhm, Ino, I wasn't actually sniffing his shirt or anything, so I wouldn't know," Sakura said in a daze, trying to remember if she _had _smelled anything on him – like weed or some other mood-changing drug. As far as she could remember, she hadn't.

"So you didn't snog him the first chance you got?" Now Ino seemed slightly disappointed with her.

"No!" Sakura shrieked, "Christ, Ino, how much of a slut do I _look _like?!" She covered her mouth, remembering that Ino would have probably tackled the poor boy as soon as he'd said "hello".

**»»««**

Suddenly, from Sasuke's emo-corner – I mean locker bay – there was the muted sound of an explosion, followed by what _sounded _like a shrieking, "I am _not _a _slut_!"

The Uchiha was tempted to follow the other brave souls who were rushing to see the potential catfight at the tri, but then he remembered that catfights meant cell phones and smuggled-in video cameras, and whatever those devices caught would be posted on YouTube and several MySpace accounts. Since his brother had accounts for both sites, Sasuke decided to cut his losses and stay safely away from the dignity-and-peace-killing mayhem.

"Sasuke, Sakura-chan and some blond chick are trying to kill each other! Come help us break it up!" Naruto and Kiba waved frantically at him before dashing off towards the chaos.

The rosette was fighting? Not that he cared, but that might be an interesting sight, perhaps even worth losing some dignity and getting his ass kicked by Itachi later on tonight. Pretending nonchalance – not a difficult task for the emo prince – Sasuke walked into the sunlight and started towards the tri.

**»»««**

"Ow! Ino I said I was sorry like fifty million times! _Ow! _Hands off the hair, brat!" Sakura was currently fighting for her life against the onslaught of attacks thrown at her by a now-very enraged blonde with very sharp acrylic nails and very hard heels. Needless to say, the rosette was in danger of being murdered at the moment.

"Shut up, cotton-candy-colored _emo girl!_" Ino screeched at her.

Oh, no she did _not _just call her a "cotton-candy-colored emo girl". _Hell _no.

When Naruto, Kiba, and Sasuke arrived, both girls were equal participants in a garbage can-throwing, screeching, hair-pulling catfight that threatened to turn into a full-blown riot if they smacked the right people.

"I'll grab Sakura," Sasuke said, instantly the leader. "You guys can go after the psychotic blond girl. Go."

Kiba and Naruto charged down the stairs, sending up battle cries as they went after Ino. Sasuke was close behind them, silently rushing (Uchihas didn't _charge_) towards Sakura.

Sakura suddenly found her adversary tackled to the ground by a blond whiskered teen and a brunette with red tattoos on his face. A second later, two steel-strong arms wrapped around her, pinning her arms firmly to her sides.

"Let go!" She snarled, swinging her legs up to kick at the empty air in front of her – probably in the vain hope that becoming a squirming deadweight in her restraint's arms would make the asshole drop her.

"Shut up and calm down," an equally irritated voice growled in her ear. In her fury, the rosette didn't recognize the voice, and chose to ignore the malice that laced it.

Bad move.

In the next instant Sakura's butt hit the warm cement, legs stretched in front of her. When she moved as if she was going to scramble back to her feet, Sasuke sat on her legs and gave her his best ice-melting glare. The rosette promptly went still.

"Are you going go behave if I let you up, or am I going to have to keep you pinned like this until the principal comes to toss both of you in Ice?" The Uchiha's face held to sympathy for the fate she faced if she didn't start calming down.

"Fine, I won't kill her," she grumbled, looking away from those scorching black eyes. For a split second, she could have sworn she'd seen them flicker red – but that was impossible, right?

He stayed seated on her legs for another few seconds, then got to his feet and looked over to the carnage that was Ino killing Naruto while Kiba tried to spray her with a soda he'd snagged from one of the spectators (forgetting momentarily that she was a _human_, not a rabid animal), who were now starting to melt away at the sound of hard-soled shoes coming towards the chaos.

"Come on," Sasuke said, grabbing Sakura by the arm and dragging her over to where Kiba and Naruto had _finally _pinned Ino down. "Unless you two_ want _to get suspended, that is."

He kicked Kiba, and the dog-boy and Naruto each grabbed one of Ino's arms and hauled her to her feet. The five students managed to disappear just before the school authorities – and several campus cops – showed up on scene. Because Sasuke Uchiha had been involved, everyone who had watched the fight feigned forgetfulness, claiming they were more interested in texting about the fight with their friends than memorizing faces.

* * *

**Author's Note: Chapter Four is finally finished! Praise me! Praise me! (A la "Zarbon's Masterpiece Theater", which belongs to BogusRed.)**

**Sorry this took so long to get out – about halfway through the chapter, I had to start fighting through a thick bog of writer's block (and trust me, for anyone who's done the same, that's exactly what it feels like: walking through really, **_**really **_**thick mud). The lyrics are tinkered with only a little bit and are from **_**Decode **_**by Paramore. Yes, I am into Twilight. Shut. Up. You fuzz bucket.**

**Looks like Sasuke has his eye on Sakura, although he'll never admit it. My guilty pleasures: writing from the perspective of the emo-prick, and then making fun of said emo-prick in an attempt to hide the massive crush I have on him. Bahaha.**

**I think Itachi would totally beat the snot out of Sasuke for involving himself in a catfight. That doesn't seem out of character for him at all. What do you think?**


	5. The Fire Drill

**Disclaimer: **Okay, I botched the attempt to own Itachi, and now he's ordering me to do a proper disclaimer. Ahem… I OWN EVERYTHING! ALL OF IT! IT'S ALL MINE! –Itachi goes Tsukiyomi on my ass- Wheeeeeeee…

**Dedication: **To the heartache of having to let go of someone who turned out to be an enemy, even when you thought they were a good friend. To the pain that comes with knowing there was no way it could have worked out, even though you desperately wanted it to. To knowing that pain is stupid because that person doesn't deserve your friendship to begin with and you're better off without them. Yes, this chapter is dedicated to the sentimental fools like me who find it agonizing to let go of even the worst people.

**Chapter Five – The Fire Drill**

_So run with the eyes of the devil, and keep them in your dreams…_

By the time break had ended, the principal had managed to weasel some of the bystanders into telling him who had been involved in the fighting… by offering them an all-class homework pass for any one week of their choice. Tricky old fart.

Sakura, who was the first to be pulled from class, vowed to murder those snitchers if she ever got word of who they were. This was cutting into her _English _class, curse it all!

Sasuke, who was also pulled from English class, figured that since he didn't have a silent reading book yet, it was probably for the best. Kiba and Naruto unknowingly agreed with him, and Ino… Well, Ino was still tied up in the J-building's storage room (mostly because she was still furious enough to kill the next person to speak to her), so she had no idea she was even supposed to be in the principal's office to begin with.

When the… quartet, I guess… arrived in the principal's office, they were told to sit in the uncomfortable wood chairs erected before the principal's desk and wait for their impending doom quietly. Then the supervisors who'd brought them all in stupidly left the four students alone and went for an early-morning coffee break.

Left to their own devices, the teens traded "we're screwed" looks and then launched into planning their story out.

"Okay, so what should we tell her?" Naruto asked frantically.

"Maybe we should tell her Ino broke her fingernail, and the pain drove her to insanity," Sakura said. "I'm sure she's already done a good job of fabricating the evidence, if she's still trying to get untied and out of God only knows where you stuffed her."

"Sakura has a good point," Kiba said, "It just might work."

"Arf," Akamaru barked softly (he was using his inside voice).

"Oh, and I guess we can't bribe the principal like we did in fifth grade when Naruto set the trashcans in the boys' bathrooms on fire," Sasuke said disparagingly. "It's not like there was a millionaire involved in the fight or anything."

Sakura leveled a mild, slightly half-hearted glare at the emo boy and said, "Get off your damned high horse, Sasuke. Money doesn't solve everything; the sooner you learn that, the happier you'll be. And besides, I was planning to do that when Ino got in trouble for going on that little murderous rampage and almost slaughtering half of the school's student body." When everyone looked quizzically at her – heck, even the emo prince looked surprised, though he hid it better than Kiba and Naruto – Sakura rolled her eyes and said, "Our parents were both lawyers, okay? We kind of got a giant windfall with the money they left us in their wills."

She spoke coldly about her parents' deaths, but the three boys could tell she was bluffing. She even closed her eyes when they started to glitter midway through her explanation.

"Okay," Naruto said after a short, uncomfortable silence, "So Sasuke will bail us four out, and Sakura can–"

"I'll bail Ino out, too," Sasuke said abruptly. "Give me a break, do you really think I'm going to leave out the chick who had to be hogtied, gagged, and thrown into an unused storage closet to keep the general public safe from being slaughtered? Or does that not sound suicidal to anyone else?"

He had a point, and it was all too easy to imagine Ino chasing the teenager down with a tire iron when she found out he hadn't also bribed her out of Ice. It was also very funny to imagine what she would do if he ran out of breath first or tripped. Oh, no wait, that was only Sakura thinking. Bad Sakura. Bad.

Bahaha…

With their evil scheming – er, planning – out of the way, the four students settled in to wait for their principal, who seemed to be taking an awfully long time to grace them with her appearance. Seriously, what was with the in-charge types? Did their time somehow matter more because they made up the rules? Or were the rumors about the teacher's lounge having a Wii and an Xbox 360 true, and the teachers and staff members took so long because thy were finishing levels?

Finally, the door opened again, and in stepped Principal Tsunade.

All four of the gathered troublemakers did a double-take – though the emo boy wonder did so quietly and with much more reserve than the others, of course.

Tsunade was rumored to be at least fifty years old, but she had the appearance of a twenty-one-year-old woman. Her honey blond hair was held away from her face in two very loose ponytails, and she had sharp mahogany-colored eyes that seemed to take in every tiny detail of her surroundings without ever once moving.

And then there were the giant mounds under her shirt, which looked as though they should be giving the old woman back troubles by now. Kiba and Naruto had started drooling like a Team Jacob fangirl when she sees a picture of shirtless Taylor Lautner. Sakura managed to snag Akamaru before a waterfall of slobber drowned the poor puppy, who immediately whirled and almost drowned Sakura with puppy kisses.

Sasuke… was honestly more interested in watching Akamaru try to lick Sakura's face off. He was just glad the principal wasn't trying to smother him with her… ahem… "assets".

Why did all of his fangirls have to be so hormonal?

"Take a picture kiddies," Tsunade informed the two drooling teens between Sasuke and Sakura. "It'll last a hell of a lot longer." She waded through the three feet of hormonal teenage boy drool (gross) and sat at her desk, folding her hands on the neatly polished wood in front of her.

"You guys should invest in some Gameguy magazines," Sakura advised as she gave Akamaru back to Kiba. "Or take something to make the hormones go away."

"We could always do the 'special surgery' they do for dogs," Sasuke added with a smirk. Kiba and Naruto both flinched away from him and crossed their legs.

Sasuke was a bastard, but when he wasn't insulting you, he could actually be pretty funny. In any case, his thinly-concealed threat seemed to make the boys remember that Tsunade was at least two generations too old for them.

"So, you four are the ones who caused that riot in the tri earlier," Tsunade said, returning their attention to her. "Now, I don't want to seem hasty or anything, so why don't you start by telling me what happened? Pinky, why don't you start us off?"

_Pinky?_ Old woman or not, if she wasn't the principal, Sakura would have taken that mother(censored) _down._

"Ino and I got into a bit of an argument, and I accidentally said something insulting, and she tried to kill me," Sakura said, hoping speaking really fast would confuse the woman.

"Tried to kill you? Just how bad was the insult, hm?"

…_Damn _it…

"Uh, well, Ino is slightly psychotic, and, uhm, she's had more than a few boyfriends, and I sort of accidentally called her a… uhm… slut…"

"Really?" Tsunade had a very interesting evil grin on her face at this point.

"Yep, and you know what else?" Sakura asked sweetly. "I'll give you a thousand dollars if you let me and Ino off the hook."

Naruto, Kiba, and Sasuke turned to stare at her with very levels of shock. Hadn't Sasuke just said he'd bail all five of them out? What was the rosette _doing_?

"You don't have that kind of money," the principal snorted.

Out came Sakura's wallet, faster than anyone could see it, and in another second, ten of the hundreds that had been hidden in the highly-expensive pleather pouch rested on the principal's desk. Tsunade's eyes bulged.

"How… did you get that much money?"

"My parent's were both big-time lawyers," Sakura sighed, looking at her nails. "You wouldn't believe how generous their wills were in giving Ino and I their savings. And then there was the life insurance…" She flicked her sea-green eyes up at the woman and said, "Hey, I'll give you the other five if you let the guys go, too. They were trying to break up the fight, anyway."

"She doesn't need to do that," Sasuke interrupted, "I'll bail us out."

Sakura did try not to growl at him. She gave it her best effort, truly.

"Sakura, I don't think growling at Sasuke is going to make him change his mind," Naruto said, cringing away from the girl as she glared at Sasuke. Unfortunately, Sasuke glared right back at her; Kiba yanked Naruto down a second before the lightning bolts coming from their eyes zapped the poor blonde.

**»»««**

From her dark cave… er, the storage closet in the J-building… Ino heard the sound of an explosion and chuckled gleefully, her voice muffled by the gag Naruto had tied around her mouth.

Wait, why did the gag feel fuzzy? And why did it stink like only sweaty boy shoes can stink?

…

"_MM HM UM MIFFF!" _Ino screamed around the sock. She kicked the door off its hinges and used one of the broken pieces of hinge to cut the jump ropes off her wrists. Her hands free, she tore off the sock and jump ropes around her ankles and set the whole closet on fire. According to her diabolical plan, this set the fire alarm off, and she was able to blend in with the other students who filed quickly outside.

Mwahahahaha…

**»»««**

The epic battle of the glares was cut short by the sound of the fire alarm going off. Naruto and Kiba each grabbed on warring teen and hauled them outside, to the front of the school and around the side towards the field where everyone was supposed to meet up during fires or drills. It was a better option than charging through the campus without knowing which part of which building was on fire.

It would not be outside of the bad luck of any of the four students – or the puppy, for that matter – to get dive-bombed by a flaming tree branch, ignited by whichever flame the tree stood closest to.

During their flight to the green, Sasuke (dragged along by Naruto, who was possibly the only dolt in the city brave enough to _drag _an Uchiha anywhere) and Sakura (carried over Kiba's shoulder while Akamaru tried to stay balanced on her back) never stopped glaring at each other, forcing Kiba and Naruto to run in such a way that they weren't in the path of the continuing stream of lightning bolts passing between the two.

Luckily, the route they used to get to the field was the shorter way, so they made it there within five minutes of stampeding out of Tsunade's office.

Since none of the Freshmen knew what to do during a fire alarm at the high school (and since most Freshman teachers were total pricks who usually told any students who asked about the normal procedure that there "wasn't any time"), there were several students standing around stupidly, waiting for a teacher or a kind upperclassman (pfft, right, that'll happen) to explain things to them.

Several of the freaking upperclassmen, who enjoyed nothing more than feeding off the suffering and confusion of their lowerclassmen counterparts, weren't helping by playing tag, texting their friends, throwing wads of grass torn from the field, and generally acting like total imbeciles. The teachers, forced to try to get everyone to either stop being a douche bag or understand how fire drills worked, could not possibly keep an eye on _every student, _and so several otherwise detention-able offenses were left to continue unabated.

Because of the momentary chaos, our four… antiheroes… were able to mingle among their peers without being noticed. Naruto and Kiba managed to find some handkerchiefs to blindfold the two still-glaring teenagers, effectively ending the bolts of lightning sparking from their eyes. Surprisingly, this also seemed to make the two warring teenagers completely still. Kind of like horses, except smaller, and with less prancing back and forth and snorting for no reason.

Unfortunately, the momentary chaos also allowed two sinister beings to sneak up almost entirely unnoticed as the four regrouped and tried to calm down. Almost, because they didn't exactly pay attention to where they were walking, and ended up walking into each other. The resulting _crack _of two bodies colliding drew Naruto and Kiba's attention to their attackers.

"Watch where you're going, Blondie," Neji Hyuga growled. The effeminate boy then had to duck out of the way as Ino hurled a random trashcan (complete with a random pants'd Freshman with nerd glasses, off course) right at his face. The trashcan bounce-rolled away, spitting the severely embarrassed Freshman out like an idiot Junior spits a wad of chewing tobacco right in front of the unsuspecting bookworm walking behind him and wishing he'd hurry up or move out of the way because she's late to class.

The poor boy hiked his pants back up to his waist and took off running before any Seniors could catch sight of him again.

"I smell asshole," Sakura said, sniffing the air in the general direction of where Neji was standing. The Hyuga glared, but, since Sakura was still blindfolded, it had no effect.

"I smell an enraged, blonde female," Sasuke said. There was the tiniest hint of terror in his calm voice. He scooted a little farther away from the sound of Naruto's high-pitched squealing as Ino attacked the poor boy with her nails. Kiba and Neji very wisely chose to ignore Naruto's desperate cries of, "Get the pepper spray, for the love of God, get the pepper spray!"

"So, Inuzuka," Neji said spitefully, "Why are the emo prince and the psychotic pink-haired girl blindfolded? I thought you guys were in the principal's office, not making a pornographic fetish video."

God, Neji is such a _douche bag._

"I hear an asshole, too," Sakura growled. She ripped off the blindfold (Kiba and Naruto, sensing that neither of their familiars would appreciate the sock in the face they'd given Ino, had been wise enough to use actual bandanas on Sasuke and Sakura) and glared at Neji before realizing that Sasuke was sitting close enough to touch her hand if he moved just another inch or two to his right. She yelped and rolled away, but she was sitting next to the dip in the ground were the grass stooped about a yard and ended at the edge of a small, paved walkway.

"Ow," she mumbled when she finally stopped tumbling and landed knees-first on the cement below. "Who put that hill there?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the landscapers," Sasuke said, peering at her from the edge of the hill. Apparently, he'd figured out how to undo his blindfold. How brilliant.

"No one asked you," Sakura responded, sticking her tongue out at him.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and disappeared from the edge of the hill without even bothering to offer the rosette any help climbing back up. True, the hill was only three feet tall, but still. Sakura grumbled and scrambled back up to stand with the others, who were currently more interested in watching Ino strangle Naruto to within an inch of his life than actually trying to help the poor bastard.

"A sweaty gym sock!" Ino was screeching, "You used a sweaty gym sock to gag me, you worthless, brainless piece of dog crap!"

"I couldn't find the band-_ow!_" Naruto tried to apologize, opening his mouth just in time to get a mouthful of angry Ino fist. Unfortunately, since Naruto's incisors (also called the canines) were sharper than normal teeth should probably be, he left twin scrapes in the back of Ino's hand.

"You bit me, you son of a bitch!" Ino roared, standing up to kick Naruto in the face and stomach.

Sakura, trying to decide whether she should keep watching or risk her own life to save the bloodied heap formerly known as Naruto, was still aware enough of her surroundings to notice Sasuke moving to stand just a little too close out of the corner of her eye, and shifted her weight to her other foot so that she was very subtly leaning away from the boy. She saw his shoulders twitch, like he was suppressing an unsurprised chuckle.

"Is your sister on her period or something?" he asked quietly.

"Is that really any of your business at all?" Sakura retorted scathingly. The more time she spent around Sasuke, the more he seemed to go from terrifying to a little irritating.

She saw him shrug before he said, "Not really. I was just wondering if this was normal behavior for her. If it is, I could almost feel sorry for you."

"I don't need your sympathy," she growled. Now she blatantly took a step away from him, moving closer to Kiba.

"I said almost." Sasuke followed her, keeping within his breaking-the-personal-bubble distance and further annoying (and worrying) Sakura. Like the rosette, he kept his eyes on the fight, watching her from the peripheral.

"Well, good. Keep it at almost."

Eventually, Ino calmed down and let Naruto crawl away to the office after making him swear on his beloved ramen to tell the nurses that he had been attacked by a horde of angry Seniors. Two minutes later, the teachers decided their stupid first-day-of-school fire drill wasn't worth the current state of unrest among the students (and the sudden lack of referral sheets due to the fights and other bits of chaos they'd managed to thwart) and rounded their students up to head back to their respective classes.

Neji immediately skulked away from the group, not wanting to be seen with them, and Kiba followed Ino at a safe distance to be sure she didn't get behind an unsuspecting bystander and kill them.

As Sakura started to follow after Kiba, Sasuke reached out and caught her firmly by the arm, jerking her to a stop.

"Let go," she hissed at him. His grip stayed firm even after she'd tried several times to yank her arm away.

"If you think trying to act brave is fooling anyone," Sasuke told her quietly, "You're wrong. We aren't all idiots, Sakura. Some of us can tell when you aren't feeling as tough as you'd like us to think you are." His eyes burned, and this time Sakura was _positive _she saw them turn a deep shade of ruby before he let her arm go and walked away. She pulled her sleeve up and was stunned to see there weren't even any white marks on the area where he'd grabbed her. She'd thought for sure he would have left at least a bruise.

_Who does he think I am? _She wondered angrily as she stalked to her English class. _I'm not some easily-intimidated brat like all the other hookers he's probably screwed! He must think I'm some stupid little mouse or something, the prick!_

Somehow, though, her insulting, abhorrently-directed thoughts couldn't keep her angry enough for a long enough period of time to keep that familiar stomach-full of ice from settling back against her spine again.

**Author's Note: FINALLY. Happy New Year's, everyone! Here's to the first New Year's Eve party where I was allowed to drink champagne! It actually doesn't really do anything for me, though. I drank a few glasses of it, but it was really more to show my dad that I wasn't a wuss. I am, however, an apparent lightweight. I woke up with a VERY bad headache.**

**First off, "pleather" is fake leather, made from a material called polyurethane (don't worry, I can't pronounce it either). And antihero is an actual character type, most often used to describe a main character who does not necessarily display the "accepted" characteristics of the typical hero. I'm not making this up. Go Google it.**

**Yes, this chapter is shorter than you probably deserve, but I don't bloody care. THREE OF MY TEACHERS GAVE ME FREAKING HOMEWORK OVER THE GOD DAMNED WEEKEND! **_**THREE SUBJECTS! **_**Gah!**

**Oh, and the lyrics are from "Eyes Of The Devil" by Seether. Yay Seether!**


	6. I'd Rather Go Blind

**Disclaimer: This is Itachi Uchiha speaking. Since Wrath is still recovering from the effects of the Tsukiyomi, I've taken it upon myself to write the disclaimer. She does not own any part of Naruto, least of all my brother, Neji Hyuga, myself, or Madara Uchiha – though if she wants the ownership of someone like Madara, I certainly won't stop her. She knows that Naruto's weakness is beef ramen, but since she's still in a coma we shouldn't be in any danger yet.**

**Dedication: **To realizing that all of your faults and shortcomings mean very little in the end, and to the knowledge that you honestly couldn't care less if someone dislikes you for something you can't control.

**Chapter Six – I'd Rather Go Blind**

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_Look at him; look at me. That boy is bad, and honestly? He's a wolf in disguise, but I can't stop looking for those evil eyes…_

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_Fourth Period – Sakura (Algebra in M-3)_

Sakura officially hated math. Their teacher, a man named Mr. Olson, was a total imbecile who enjoyed nothing more than going into long-winded stories that had little to nothing at all to do with math. On top of that, the unfortunate rosette was sitting next to an irritating bespectacled teenage girl with glasses and the most hideous shade of red hair she had ever seen. We won't even mention how much of the girl's boobs, thighs, and stomach were exposed. To make everything just peachy, Mr. Olson was currently the only teacher to assign homework on the first day of school.

Sakura was almost tempted to do the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things to do: ask herself if the day could possibly get any worse. Luckily, she caught herself just in time and instead took out her notebook to "work on some math problems".

She was halfway through sketching out an idea for that irritating project that had been nagging her since before school started when a nasally, highly unpleasant voice sneered, "That doesn't look like math to _me._"

The rosette tried to ignore the irritating little brat next to her, but her patience had already been worn very thin today. She quietly willed herself not to punch the redhead and continued writing.

"Hey, Pinky." Something sharp jabbed into Sakura's side, making her flinch. "I'm talking to you!"

"If I cared, I would respond more readily," Sakura hissed through her teeth. Did this chick _want _to die or something? Determined not to murder anyone on her first day in high school, the rosette very pointedly shifted in her sat, turning away from her neighbor.

"Ch. How rude," came the grumbled reply.

Thankfully, the lunch bell rang, and ten by ten the students fled the classroom, desperate to get away from Mr. Olson and his old man monologues. Sakura stayed seated, waiting until the girl to her right had left the room before beginning to pack her things up. She would need to hurry – she was supposed to meet up with Ino so they could go to the nearby MacDonald's – or, as Ino termed it, MacScarf-and-Barf.

It could get very tense between the girls when it came to good ol' Mickey D's.

Unfortunately, Sakura's math class was the farthest of her classes from the school parking lot; unless she jogged, she and Ino would have very little time to eat. Not to mention the fact that this area was a parking lot for the special needs teachers and shop students, the latter of whom would probably run her over if she didn't move out of the way fast enough. Curse her bad luck.

From his usual spot in the Emo Locker Bay of Death, Sasuke watched as a psychotic pink-haired female charged at top speed towards the parking lot, mowing over several Pedestranians in the process.

What? Don't look at me like that – Sasuke's the one who refers to pedestrians as "Pedestranians," not me. Actually, don't look at Sasuke like that, either. His death glare kills people, you know.

The incredibly moody boy narrowed his eyes in irritation before moving out into the bright sunlight to go meet up with his brother for lunch. He could only pray Itachi had not been surfing the internet on his iPhone during class, because Sasuke had already seen several students heading to the computer lab before third period had begun.

**»»««**

"You are so slow, Forehead," Ino teased Sakura as they munched down on MacDonald's food a few minutes later. "Jeez, a whole minute and a half to get to the parking lot? You can do better than that!"

"Shut up," Sakura muttered around a bite of her hamburger. "I was swarmed by hormonal teenage girls who demanded that I leave their precious 'Sasuke-kun' the hell alone. Oh, and there was some guy telling me to stay away from Sasuke, too."

"Was he gay or did he look more like a bodyguard?"

"He was flaming." Sakura threw a handful of squishy fries (the very best kind) into her mouth with an irritated grumble. "I mean, all I did was end up having to be yanked off of you in a catfight. Like it's _my _fault the idiot had to get involved."

"Sakura, could you maybe tone it down a little?" Ino asked lightly. There was a slight strain to her voice that the rosette didn't immediately pick up on.

"And besides, the guy's a total prick; what do all those girls even freaking _see _in him, anyway? He's got his freaking chin so high up in the air it's like he's _begging _for someone to punch him! I mean, he walks around like he owns the entire (censored) city, you know? Of all the arrogant–"

"Uhm, Sakura?" Ino said, cutting Sakura's angry ranting short. Her voice now was very squeaky, and she looked a little like a kindergartener who just realized the teacher saw them take chalk from the chalkboard.

"What is it, Ino-chan?"

"You should probably change the subject. And try not to make any sudden movements. Or make eye contact. In fact, you should probably just not move or talk at all."

"…He's standing nearby, isn't he?"

"He's about three feet away from you, with his brother."

"…Mr. Fluffers gets my iPod."

"But you said _I _could have your iPod!" Ino shrieked, jumping up and pointing accusingly at her friend while simultaneously breaking the don't-talk and don't-make-sudden-movements rules.

Predictably, the entire restaurant (can Mickey-D's be called a restaurant?) turned to look in their direction, except for the Brothers Uchiha, who were already looking at them. Ino flushed and very quietly sat back down, glaring at Sakura as if she were trying to murder the girl.

"Ino, please don't draw any more attention than what we already have," Sakura grumbled, staring at the French fry she was preparing to eat as if it had some vitally interesting secret of life written on it.

"Sorry, Forehead, but my moment of superior fury overwhelmed me." Ino didn't look sorry at all – in fact, she was too busy ogling at Itachi, who had his back turned to the girls so he could order. Sasuke was probably glaring back, but Sakura honestly didn't care about that at the moment. Nor was she about to look up to be sure that was what he was doing, since his eyes would probably be some frightening shade of blood red.

Plus, the boy had a glare that could peel layers off of granite. Sakura _liked _having her flesh firmly attached to her bones, thank you very much.

"Sakura-chan?" Ino asked quietly.

"What, Ino?"

"…Can I at least have your laptop? Yours is newer than mine."

"What's he doing?"

"He's trying to shoot lasers or something from his eyes. I swear, I think they're turning red." Ino frowned up at the innocent fluorescent lights overhead. "Wonder if it's just the lighting bringing out some of the color…?"

So Sakura wasn't crazy. Of course, drawing that assumption when _Ino _was the one confirming the rosette's suspicions about Sasuke's eyes probably wasn't very intelligent, considering Ino was probably the closest thing to a psyche patient Sakura knew.

"Just don't look at him. Maybe he won't kill me in public."

"…That sounded slightly masochistic, Sakura. Do you _want _him to–"

With ninja reflexes, Sakura grabbed her cup of melted ice (she'd drained her Coke in fifty seconds due to the adrenalin rush of dealing with Sasuke so much that day) and pitched it at Ino's head. The lid flipped off, drenching the blonde's hair and face.

"…You _whore. _What the hell did you do _that _for?!"

"You're being too noisy, Ino. Let's not give the emo any more reasons to hate me, ne?" Why, why was Itachi taking so damn long to get the food? Why weren't the chefs cooking faster?

At least Ino got the picture. Sakura looked up at her sister in time to see understanding flicker in her teal-blue eyes.

And then a very firm, warm hand grabbed Sakura by the wrist.

"Can I talk to you _outside?_" Sasuke murmured. She could hear something burning in his voice, but she couldn't tell what it was. He didn't sound _angry_, in any case. Still, he was _way _too close to her – she flinched.

"And if I say no?" she hissed back at him. She glared at her untouched hamburger instead of meeting his eyes. She was fairly certain the idea of having to drag an unwilling, bubble-gum-haired female outside while she was screaming _rape _and _he's got a gun_ would be enough to deter even this giant prick.

Then again, maybe he was so well known around here that no one would actually believe that he was trying to molest her at gunpoint; that being the case, she was probably screwed… in the figurative sense of the word.

But Sasuke didn't make any move to drag her to her feet. He let out a very low, quiet growl, then stood up and left with his older brother, who had apparently been holding their food the entire time and had been pretending to wait for their surprisingly large order for whatever reason.

"…They hate me, don't they?" Sakura asked in a tiny voice.

"More than likely," Ino said, crawling out from under the table. "I thought Sasuke would strangle you with his shoelaces or something."

"How long have you been hiding?"

"Since a little after he tried to force you to talk to him. He gave me the evil eye," Ino said. She shuddered, apparently realizing for the first time just what it was about the two brothers that seemed to terrify her sister so much.

Sakura shook her head, not entirely sure she was ready to go back to school in twelve minutes. She wasn't sure what to expect from Sasuke now, and she was beginning to wonder what dark corner of the school campus he would be hiding in so he could jump out and grab her without anyone noticing. In her mind, she started tracing all the possible routs to her fifth period classroom; the shortest route had two places for him to hid, and the longer routes had one or two each. If she cut around from the little side fence near the school's "fire drill" field…

"Sakura, we should probably get going," Ino said, startling her out of her planning. Sakura glanced at the clock and saw that her twelve minutes had been reduced to six.

Great.

**»»««**

Art class wasn't really anything to write home about. At least not at the moment.

By some miracle or divine intervention, Sakura's art teacher, Mrs. Nori, was the only teacher so far to introduce a seating chart on the first day of school. Since it was alphabetically arranged, Sasuke sat two rows to Sakura's right and five seats back.

If she didn't think he had any projectile weaponry on his person, Sakura would have jumped up started cheering. As it was, she felt only a little frightened by the fact that he could very clearly see the self-satisfied smirk playing across her lips.

_Just don't check to see if he's glaring at you, _she told herself lightly.

Despite her pep talk, she found herself constantly aware that he was in the same classroom with her. She frowned when the hour drew to a close – what the heck was this? Was it because she knew he was mad at her that she was paying attention to him? Or was this class so incredibly boring that her mind was finding ways to amuse itself without her giving it permission to do so?

She shook her head in disgust and started focusing on her next class. Hopefully her history teacher would start them off with a subject she enjoyed, like the Renaissance or cultures from the Stone Age. The Holocaust could wait – it was a subject she usually tried to ignore, mostly because she was afraid to know just _how _terrible things had been allowed to get before World War II had ended.

When the bell rang, Sakura was one of the first out of their seats, eager to get as far away from the dark-haired boy behind her as possible. She knew it was kind of useless, in the end – he had history sixth period, too, and his classroom was right next door to hers. Still, maybe he wouldn't try to track her down in school, for fear of looking like a stalker.

A small, reasonably sane part of the rosette's mind scolded her for trying to think of reasons why he would and would not do something. One, it argued, it shouldn't matter what this stranger did, color-changing eyes and eerie behavior aside. Two, she shouldn't be running away from someone who didn't necessarily _hate _her, but rather found her to be varying levels of annoying, from sort of irritating to (possibly) infuriating.

Three, she should probably stop making faces at herself while she argued with that tiny, reasonable part of her brain, as it could make people think she was nuts.

She managed to reach her history classroom without once catching sight of the younger Uchiha, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief as she stepped into the small room.

There were about twenty or so other students – her smallest class yet – all milling around, talking with friends, listening to iPods, or throwing tiny wads of paper at each other. The teacher sat apparently unaware of his surroundings behind a withered desk made of cheap, hastily-stained wood. Papers from his previous classes littered his desk as he worked fervently to get something graded before the start of his last class.

The rosette quietly sat in the closest seat to the door – which was also the furthest seat from the wall this room shared with Sasuke's classroom – and waited for class to begin.

**»»««**

History, like Art and Computer/Careers, was an incredibly dull class to sit through on the first day of school. Sakura was only a little certain that the bell hadn't roused her from a light catnap at the end of the period. She was groggy, but she _thought _she'd heard everything the elderly teacher had gone over in the syllabus. Something about the Middle Ages and dragons eating Nazis and Christopher Columbus eating a pizza topped with little lizard eyeballs…

…Okay, apparently, she had _definitely _fallen asleep. Christopher Columbus didn't eat lizard eyes (let's ignore the fact that he probably never ate pizza for the entire duration of his life, considering the times he lived in), and though she fervently wished for it, no Nazi to her knowledge had ever gone toe-to-toe with a giant, fire-breathing _dragon_.

And why was she suddenly remembering a chibi version of Taylor Lautner running around in nothing but boxer shorts?

"Sakura!" Ino screeched behind her.

Because of her sister's incredibly loud voice, Sakura had warning enough to brace herself so that when the blonde inevitably plowed into her, she didn't go flying into some poor bystander – the Neji incident last Thursday hadn't exactly been quick to leave her memory. She was still waiting for Icicle Boy to set her hair on fire or something.

"Hi, Ino," the rosette yawned, deftly prying her sister's arms from around her neck. "Let's go home – I'm exhausted."

"Yeah, I'll bet Mr. Fluffers is dying of loneliness," Ino said, pulling away from her. "Oh, poor Mr. Fluffers! Mommy's coming!" Her voice became so tragic at the end of her melodrama Sakura would have wept, if it was in a cheesy romance movie and not pertaining to their poor cat (who, intelligent creature that he was, was likely already trying to find somewhere to hide before the psychotic blonde girl got home).

From his other emo corner (i.e., the locker bay that housed Naruto, Kiba, and Neji's lockers), Sasuke watched as the two girls walked across the grass to the parking lot of the school, coal-grey eyes smoldering as though they'd been lit from within.

(What? Don't glare at me, Emo Boy, that's what it says in the script.)

"Sasuke!"

The emo prince knew Naruto well enough to expect, catch, and twist the arm he tried to throw around Sasuke's neck behind Naruto's back, pinning it there until the idiot squeaked like a kitten whose tail is about to get stepped on.

"Ow, you bastard, ow!" Naruto yelped, twisting away and glaring murderously at the boy he claimed to be his best friend. "Why are you so interested in Sakura-chan, teme?"

"Yeah," Kiba chimed in, "I thought you didn't like her. What's the deal?"

Sasuke glared at both of them before turning his back to them and walking out into the light.

"Hn," was all he responded with.

Thank god Neji was already on the damn school bus. Sasuke was definitely _not _in the mod to punch anyone. At least, not at the moment.

**»»««**

Meanwhile, at the… well, let's call it the House of Psychos… a certain Mr. Fluffers was sitting, watching the windows fearfully. He had already chosen his hiding spot, and chosen it well. For indeed, who would ever think to look for a cat… under the clothes in the laundry basket?

He had decided that he would bolt as soon as he saw the blonde female – and the key idea was _not _to let her see him before he bolted, because God only knew she could outrun him in pretty much any pair of shoes she was wearing, even the spaghetti heals she liked to wear to more formal occasions (which sort of the same for Ino as eating lobster was for people who didn't use ten- and twenty-dollar bills as Kleenex – it didn't happen very often).

_There! _The bubblegum-colored one and the psychotic blonde female rounded the corner and were headed to the house. The blonde hadn't spotted him yet.

Quickly, with the agility and grace gifted unto his species since the time of the Great Fanged One (saber-toothed tiger), Mr. Fluffers leapt from the windowsill, raced into the laundry room, and buried himself at the bottom of the laundry basket.

Victory at last. The tom fell asleep, success striking long-forgotten purrs from his throat…

**»»««**

"Ino, why is Mr. Fluffers a giant poof ball?" Sakura asked the next morning.

The aforementioned cat hobbled very angrily into the kitchen, yowling under his breath. His long, pretty fur was sticking straight out, making his feet invisible. Actually, he rather resembled a giant dandelion (the pretty white stage, not the ugly yellow stage)… only with an equally-fluffy tail to match.

"The silly thing must have jumped into the dryer when I loaded it last night," Ino giggled, ruffling the already-fluffy fur on Mr. Fluffers' head. She yanked her hand back when he snapped at her irritably.

"You sure you didn't accidentally throw him in the washer, then mistake his half-drowned body for a wad of jeans?" Sakura asked suspiciously.

"Well actually," Ino said slowly, "Now that you mention it…" She snagged Mr. Fluffers and death-hugged him, squealing, "Oh, so _that's _where you were hiding, you silly goose!"

Mr. Fluffers simply growled and glared accusingly at the pink-haired female. Why wasn't she helping him?

But the girl only smiled and turned away, suddenly very interested in the morning news. She was secretly just as miffed with Ino as Mr. Fluffball – er, Mr. Fluffers – seemed to be. Throwing the family cat into the washer _and _dryer without noticing anything odd was a little dense, even for Ino.

I mean, come on; how could someone with such apparently sensitive hands _not notice the heavy, bony, squishy thing in the wet clothing_?!

* * *

**Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out – when life (and its friends heartache and solitude) decide to come bite me in the ass, I generally don't tend to think about my online obligations. (God, that sounded **_**so**_** wrong.) At least this chapter is a little bit longer, but I was so busy trying to keep myself from writing a kissing scene that the ideas weren't flowing as freely as they usually do.**

**Anyway, I'm liking the developing… stalking?… between Sasu-chan and Sakura. Does it seem like I'm rushing through this a little bit? Ah well, I don't care anyway. XD**

**The chapter title is a song by Beyoncé, though I've never actually listened to it (yet). The opening lyrics are from "Monster" by Lady Gaga. I thought the title and lyrics would fit, considering Sakura's preoccupation with Sasuke's eyes. See, Sakura and I (at least, in this fanfiction) are very similar people – eyes and voices mean more to our subconscious minds than attitudes and quirks.**

**The annoying chick in Sakura's math class is – surprise! – Karin. I don't care what you say, she and Sakura would make **_**horrible **_**friends. I like them better when they're killing each other. It fits.**

**And – hee – did anyone else enjoy Sakura ratting on Sasuke behind his back?**


	7. Let Your Guard Down

**Disclaimer: **And I'm back! After throwing Sasuke off the tallest building in my hometown (which is three stories tall – just the way I like it) to get Itachi to freaking leave me alone with my laptop, I managed to sneak over to Gabby's house and am now hiding under her bed. As she also likes Itachi – though not quite as much as I do – I imagine the sound of her swooning will give me enough warning to run the hell away.

**Dedication: **To being all alone, and to never quite being able to convince yourself that it's better that way.

**Chapter Seven – Let Your Guard Down**

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* * *

**

_She's beautiful as usual, with bruises on her ego, and the killer instinct tells her to be aware of evil men…_

_

* * *

_The next week and a half passed in much the same fashion as the first day of school.

Sakura ended up hanging out with Naruto, Kiba, and Ino during break and lunch each day, and they would make fun of their teachers and the Idiot Twins – Ino's nickname for Sasuke and Neji, who generally tended to avoid the foursome as much as they possibly could – whenever the coast was clear to do so.

Of course, Sakura still had to survive P.E., Computer/Careers, and Art class with Sasuke, but since P.E. and Art hadn't yet put the two in close contact with each other, she was pretty safe. It grew easier each day to ignore him when he sat next to her in class or stood close to her during the few times he chose to socialize. Of course, she never stopped being keenly aware of his presence, but she was eventually able to tune that awareness out so that the hair on her arms wasn't constantly sticking straight on end.

Most importantly, she was able to figure out – or rather, admit to herself – the reason _why _she was so tuned in to every little thing Sasuke Uchiha did.

Apparently, loveless little Sakura had a crush on the emo boy. If it was happening to anyone else, the rosette would probably be laughing hysterically. Unfortunately, it was happening to _her_, and no amount of half-naked Spartans or "therapy talks" (read: complaining to a very patient – when he had been thoroughly bribed with fine-cut salmon and kitty treats – Mr. Fluffers) could change the fact that she had to be mentally screwed up to be in love with someone who honestly _still _scared the hell out of her.

Well, okay, so she wasn't "in love." It was just a stupid, girly little crush, probably brought on by some deeply-buried masochistic tendency she hadn't discovered in herself until now. Not that she was going to start cutting herself to test that theory out…

Because, honestly? Telling Ino about it on Saturday was punishment enough for the weekend.

It had started after a relatively tame argument about which of the three "scary guys" (Neji, Sasuke, and Itachi) was the cutest.

They were lounging around in the living room, watching DEA on Spike – although neither one was really paying any attention to it – when Ino had randomly asked, "Okay, so out of Neji, Sasuke, and Itachi, which guy has the strongest… _physical draw,_ shall we say?"

Sakura, unwilling to reveal her newly-admitted-to crush on Sasuke, had chickened out and said Itachi – _after _letting Ino go first and say Sasuke and Neji were tied. The rosette had very foolishly hoped that by lying through her teeth, she could keep the inevitable from erupting at least until Monday.

Obviously, she must have selective, short-term memory loss when it came to the way her sister reacted to something as monumental as who Sakura happened to find attractive.

"Yeah, right," Ino had said skeptically. She turned away from the officers beating the shit out of some drug dealer to glare amusedly at Sakura. "With the way you react whenever he's nearby? Gimme a break, Pinky, how stupid do I _look_?"

Actually, she didn't look all that stupid for once. She had pulled her hair into the loose ponytail that Itachi often wore, and she was still wearing her pink and grey kitty pajamas – the shirt had a black cat head on the front, and the grey sweats were littered with pink and black cats. She looked… comfortable.

"Okay, fine," Sakura sighed, "Sasuke's the cutest." And then, without her ever giving herself the permission to do so, she added, "I… sort of have a tiny little crush on him, Ino-chan."

There was dead silence in the room for about five seconds, and then…

"_No!_" Ino yelled throwing a pillow at her face. She leapt to her feet and snarled furiously at Sakura.

"What?" the rosette asked, stunned. What was wrong – besides the obvious mental damage required – with having a crush on Sasuke? That's all it was, after all: just some stupid physical attraction that would probably pass in a few weeks or so…

"You _can't _have a crush on _Sasuke Uchiha_!" Ino yelled. "_I _have a crush on him! That's breaking the promise we made to never ever have a crush on the same guy! You pinky swore, Forehead!"

"_Ino._" Sakura said sternly. The blonde shut up, glaring bullets as her sister continued in a very slow, calm voice. "I have a _crush _on him. A _crush _is a physical attraction that does not exceed wanting to hold hands with him. A _crush _usually doesn't last for more than a month. Besides, with the way Sasuke and I get along with each other, do you really think we're sneaking off behind the bleachers to make out? I don't even _like _him, Ino! He's rude and arrogant and he treats me like I'm some kind of pariah! You can _have _him – I don't want any part of him!"

Great, now Sakura was a little miffed. She took a deep breath to steady herself, pushing all thoughts of Sasuke from her mind.

Ino was still frowning at her incredulously, but thankfully she let it go and turned back to the television screen. Now she was actively cheering whenever the cops had to hit someone, a sign that she was angry and probably even a little worried.

Sakura felt her eyebrows knit together as she saw this, realizing just _how _much Ino already liked Sasuke. If he wasn't good for her – and she was at least twice as mature and self-capable as Ino was – then how could she possibly let him get close enough to hurt Ino? She already knew he went through girlfriends like some people went through bags of Hot Cheetos, and the breakups were almost always ugly, no ,matter how aware of his poor track record the girl had been. Nobody seemed to be able to handle living with him as her boyfriend, and he very clearly had little to no interest in keeping any of his girlfriends around.

It was almost like _Sasuke _was the lady-killer, not Itachi. From the few times Sakura had interacted with Itachi (the hot cocoa incident and meeting him in the school parking lot on orientation day), she was fairly certain that if Itachi was dating yet, his girlfriends lasted much longer and probably didn't feel like committing suicide when he decided to break it off – because, really, who would break things off with _Itachi Uchiha_? Why don't we just shoot Anteros in the balls while we're at it?

Besides, Ino didn't handle rejection very well – very few boys rejected her, mostly because she was prettier than Sakura and knew how to flirt. When she was rejected, the time she would spend moping about could range from weeks to months. Contrary to popular belief, a self-conscious Ino was not a pretty sight. If Sasuke was the one to reject her, she would probably gloom about it for the rest of her four years in high school… if she didn't dive in front of a bus first.

Something warm and fluffy planted itself on the rosette's lap; Mr. Fluffers stared up at her with an expression that was to intelligent for any ordinary animal. Then again, Mr. Fluffers wasn't just _any ordinary animal._

"Mrow?" he asked quietly, patting at her nose with one fist-sized paw. Sakura took it to mean, "What's wrong, emo girl?"

"I'm going to go watch _300 _again with Mr. Fluffers," Sakura said, getting up and carrying Mr. Fluffers first to the kitchen (to grab some salmon) and then straight upstairs. Ino waited until she hard the rosette's door close before she rolled to her feet again and padded over to where she'd hidden her laptop under a blanket she'd left on the other chair-and-a-half – she'd slept in the living room with the television on last night because she'd had a nightmare last night.

Now, sitting down a little frumpily on the much-abused chair-and-a-half, she decided she would write that nightmare down on her laptop, now that her incredibly angsty sister was watching Spartans and Persians hack each other to bits and overfeeding Mr. Fluffers with salmon.

She opened a new file on Microsoft Word and saved it as "8-29-09." Then she began to type out what she could remember of her nightmare, using the present tense (as she always did when documenting her dreams)…

"_I'm in a small, dark room – there's a man with me, but I can't make out his face or even his hairstyle. I feel that he's dangerous – or maybe I'm just not comfortable with not knowing who he is – and try to run away, but he grabs me by the arm and pulls me close, telling me not to pull away."_

Underneath the description of her dream, she wrote:

"_Must make a mental list of everyone I'm uncomfortable around. Must also figure out why nightmare scares me so much."_

You see, Ino was like her sister in one way: they both believed that certain dreams could predict something about their futures. They were both still working on trying to figure out how to tell if that future was immediate or farther in time.

The fact that she had dreamed about someone she was afraid of – or at least uneasy around – showing some level of affection for her had the blonde worried. Why hadn't she fought with the guy instead of running away? Sakura was the one who usually chose the "flight" option; Ino was more the type to throw her foot up between a guy's legs if he didn't give her some space. And why had the guy said "Don't pull away" instead of throwing her to the floor or something? Did that mean it wouldn't be the stalker sort of love? That the guy wouldn't be a sex-fiend like her last fourteen and a half (her first boyfriend was really more of a mutual crush) boyfriends?

That he would… _gasp_… mean something?

Ino shook her head, clearing her thoughts of the horrifying idea. I mean, come on, this was _Ino _w were talking about. If she found a boyfriend she actually _loved_, how would she get to toy with all of hr other male admirers?

Besides, she already had five phone numbers she wanted to dial…

As always, the thought of figuratively destroying the minds and souls of teenage boys cheered Ino right up, and she promptly charged upstairs to her room, laptop under one arm.

From _her _bedroom – during a quieter part of the movie – Sakura heard Ino's door slam shut and sighed resignedly, already guessing what her sister was up to.

Ino and Sakura were alike in many, many ways, and both would swear to you that they knew each other better than they new the backs of their hands. This did not, however, mean that either girl _understood _everything her counterpart did. Ino, for example, didn't understand what Sakura enjoyed about flaming people on forums and watching half-naked men kill each other. And Sakura did not even have a clue why Ino seemed so enamored with destroying the egos of poor, defenseless teenage boys.

"Mr. Fluffers…" Sakura sighed, scratching the tom under his chin, "Do you think maybe it would be very wrong of me to make sure Sasuke doesn't end up hurting Ino? I know you don't like her, but… Well, she is my sister, and my best friend. Do you think it's playing with fate if I try to keep them apart?"

Mr. Fluffers only let out a soft mewl through the loud purrs he was emitting.

"And if I _do _try to keep them separate," the rosette continued, "How would I do it without making it blatantly obvious that I think Sasuke's no good? And I'd need to keep Ino from finding out, too…"

She frowned at her laptop, trying to think through the options before her. Finally, she rolled onto her back and glared up at the innocent white ceiling.

"Or maybe I'm just being stupid and over thinking things," she grumbled. Mr. Fluffers ignored her, cleaning the fishy flavor off his paws. His patience only lasted as long as the fish did, especially since Sakura always groaned about the same thing every day. Besides, he had all of Leonidas' lines memorized at this point.

**»»««**

On the second Thursday of the school year, Sasuke didn't show up to class. He was absent for all three of the classes he shared with Sakura, and from what Naruto, Kiba, and Neji said (although Neji may have been trying to blatantly tease Sakura with his, "Don't worry – I haven't seen him all day, either."), the younger Uchiha never once showed up at school.

Without his constant presence during her P.E., Computer/Careers, and Art, Sakura was better able to pay attention to the teachers – and also extremely glum, though she tried to tell herself this was only because a part of her expected him to come out of nowhere with a shotgun or something. It wasn't like she'd made any attempt to get along with him better – if anything, once she'd admitted to herself and Ino the crush she had on him, she'd become even more hostile and wary of the boy, often lashing out at him and standing or sitting as far away from him as she could, no longer concerned with how many people noticed or how obvious this made her dislike for him. She tried to tell herself it was better if he found her too irritating to put up with, but there was always that ever-growing part of her that wished he didn't seem quite so dangerous.

So, when he failed to make an appearance even for a brief period on Thursday, she found herself unnaturally moody and – even worse – hoping that he would come to Starbucks on Saturday, so she could demand an answer for why he'd skipped school.

Or, at least, that was the plan for the next time she saw him. In reality, she would probably never know why he'd skipped class today. It would just end up being one of those infuriating mysteries that would never be solved.

Which was a good thing, right?

On their way home from school, Ino and Sakura stopped at MacDonald's (okay, so it was a block past their street and not _technically _"on the way") to grab some McFlurries, which usually cheered Sakura up. The rosette bought an M&M McFlurry, and Ino ended up with a Butterfinger McFlurry. Unfortunately, not even the ice-cold chocolate candy and vanilla ice cream could cheer Sakura up, and she was left sulking long after they'd returned home.

"Forehead, go to the park or something," Ino finally grumbled from behind a Cosmopolitan magazine. "Go run some laps around the fountain or something. You look like you're getting ready to start cutting your wrists."

"I am _not _depressed," Sakura growled.

"Sure," Ino retorted icily, "You always act this way when people you're scared of don't show up for school."

Sakura recognized where the conversation was headed soon enough to steer herself out of dangerous waters. "Well, I have needed some time to organize my ideas for that book… Maybe a trip to the park would do e good, after all." She grabbed her notebook and a pen and headed towards the front door…

Only to halt halfway across the room when Mr. Fluffers hooked both sets of his front claws into her pant leg. He stared up at her with a wild, desperate expression that clearly said, "Don't _leave _me with her!"

"Ehm… Ino?" Sakura asked, "Can you com unhook Mr. Fluffers from my pant leg?"

_You'll pay for this, _Mr. Fluffers wanted to scream at her as Ino carried him away,_ I swear to God you'll pay for this!_ Unfortunately, Mr. Fluffers was a cat, and cats can't speak human, so all that came out was a sort of hissing, growling, snarling fit that made him sound like he had rabies. Sakura mouthed _sorry _as they disappeared to the second floor and made a mental note to buy some gourmet cat food for him next payday.

The walk to th park wasn't really that bad at all – it was about seven blocks from where the girls lived, in a quieter part of town untouched by the normal run of dorks on skateboards who thought they owned the city. The weather outside was warm, but there was enough of a breeze to offset the temperature and make it comfortable to be outside. Twice Sakura found groups of sparrows and wrens bundling together on telephone wires, making such a loud commotion that it was difficult to hear much else.

The pink-haired teenager smiled, forgetting for one moment to watch where she was walking…

…And then promptly getting clipped on her left hip by a jerk on a bicycle that was too small for him – unless the baggy clothes just created the illusion of _big, hairy, gorilla-man_.

"Hey, watch it, sugar," he called over his shoulder.

_Sugar? _Did an idiot she didn't even know seriously just call her _sugar?_ Not to mention the fact that he'd told _her _to watch where _she _was going when _he _wasn't even supposed to be on the damned sidewalk! That miserable little…

Carefully, without attracting attention to what she was doing, Sakura bent down and picked up a nice, fist-sized rock, aimed, and hurled it as hard as she could at the moron's head.

She found it very, very amusing when said moron flipped over the handlebars of his bike and hit the pavement face-first, only to have his bike land on his skull a second later. She found it even more hilarious when he took about a minute and a half to get out from under the stupid thing.

"Watch who you aggravate," Sakura told him as she passed, "Sugar." She waved over her shoulder at the now-swearing man and smiled angelically before continuing her walk.

The park was almost entirely empty when she finally arrived, which suited Sakura just fine. She liked it better when she could relax and do things at her own pace, undisturbed by any screaming children, laughing teenagers, or bickering adults. She found an empty wrought-iron and wood bench and sat down, flipping her laptop open and immediately pulling up her latest rough draft. Soon she was so absorbed by her writing that she completely lost track of time and her surroundings.

She had chosen an extremely bad time and place to sink into her own mind.

**»»««**

"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, waving frantically at his friend.

The dark-haired boy in question stopped in his tracks, having only made it three feet from the door of city hall before Naruto had seen him. Since Naruto was still across the street from the younger Uchiha, he couldn't see the deep, agitated light burning in Sasuke's eyes.

"Hn," he grunted as the blonde idiot skidded to a stop.

"Where have you been all day?" Naruto asked, punching his friend in the shoulder. Of course he wouldn't be panting – he had the stamina of twenty football players, all of whom were hyped up on steroids.

"Around town," Sasuke said nonchalantly. "I stopped here to check on a permit my brother put in a week ago."

"Oh, I get it." His friend grinned wickedly. "Hey, by the way, Sakura-chan was looking for you all day today. I think she's worried you're planning to bomb her house or something."

"Sakura Haruno was asking about me?" Sasuke felt one of his eyebrows raise of its own volition.

"Yeah – what'd you ever do to her, anyway? Every time she hears your name she flinches like she sees you coming with a baseball bat. Do you stab her with your pencil or something in your art class? Or did you blow her keyboard up in Computer/Careers?"

"Why does it matter?" Sasuke asked with a smirk, "You got a crush on Pinkie, Naruto?"

"Shut up and let's go," Naruto grumbled, "Kiba and Neji are already at my place – I told them I'd come hunt you down before we started the videogame wars."

**»»««**

"Don't be like that, sugar," one of the three thugs said, tossing her laptop to the side. Thankfully, it landed on the grass with a harmless _thunk_.

Sakura stood away from the men, one hand at her belt loop, reaching for the can of mace that was still under her pillow. The big, hairy gorilla-man from earlier had been more furious – and dangerous – than the rosette had originally thought. He'd gotten two of his friends to come with him – because apparently he couldn't take down someone as small in comparison to his five-nine, extremely bulky build – and had tried to grab Sakura from behind. She had only narrowly managed to twist out of his grip, but now she had no mace and no way to know if screaming for help would actually do anything other than infuriate these dirtballs even more.

The guy on her right lunged, grabbing her arm before she could react. When she twisted to punch that guy, his buddy in the green jacket grabbed her other arm. Gorilla-Man walked forward with a sick grin on his face.

"Aw, c'mon," he crooned. Sakura's nose curled at the smell of drugs that emanated from him. "We just wanna play – right, guys?"

Both of his friends giggled.

"Now, just play nice and this'll be over real fast, like," Gorilla-Man said, reaching for her shirt collar. He left his midsection wide open, and Sakura didn't waste that opportunity.

Relying on Gorilla-Man's buddies to keep her airborne, the rosette threw both feet up and kicked the man's gut with every ounce of strength she could muster, sending him wobbling back until he tripped over the bench and fell on his ass.

The force of the kick also sent Tweedledee and Tweedledum staggering backwards, and with a little more squirming, Sakura was able to break free. She bolted, making it to the edge of the park before one of the thugs grabbed her from behind and pinned her to the ground.

Left with no other options, Sakura took the biggest breath she could and let out an earsplitting scream.

**»»««**

Sasuke and Naruto were two blocks away from the blonde's house when they heard the sound of a woman screaming. At that same moment, Sasuke's phone rang. He waved Naruto inside and then answered it.

"Oh, shit, wrong number," a female voice – Ino's – grumbled. "Hey, Sasuke-kun, do you know where Kiba is? I need to come find Sakura – freaking pizza got here ages ago."

"Sakura isn't with Kiba," Sasuke told her, "He's been at Naruto's house, waiting for me to show up so they can do some stupid 'war of the gamer nerds'."

"Oh, then she's probably still at the park. Huh. Well, I guess I'll just go after her and…"

The park. Where the screaming sounded like it was coming from. Now that he was actually listening to it, it didn't sound like a couple of moronic girls acting like retards. It sounded desperate and very, very frightened.

"Don't bother," he told Ino quickly, "Naruto's place is closer to the park than yours. I'll tell her you called." He flipped the phone shut and bolted, not caring that his friends were yelling at him and wondering if he'd suddenly lost his mind.

_Shit…_

**»»««**

Sakura had her arms pinned behind her back by the guy who'd tackled her, and the other one was somehow able to tie her feet together with his belt – after taking several kicks to the groin and face, he'd had enough of getting pounded by a girl.

"Didn't have to be this way, sugar," Gorilla-Man sighed, "All you had to do was play nice…"

"I think it's time this little game ended," a cold, dangerously calm voice said from behind Gorilla-Man.

Sakura blinked, not believing her ears.

_Sasuke…?_

Gorilla-Man swung his fist backwards, as if he was trying to clothesline Sasuke – Sakura couldn't help but think the move made him look even more like a gorilla. He missed, and in the next moment he found his face had become very good friends with Sasuke's left hook. The dull crack of the man's jaw breaking under the blow sent chills up Sakura's spine.

"Little bitch!" the guy snarled. He and his friend went after Sasuke… and collided with each other when Sasuke jumped out of the way.

Sakura was transfixed the fight, as if watching would be enough to keep Sasuke from getting hurt. She never noticed the punk who was still holding onto her reach up and club her on the back of her head.

* * *

**Author's Note: For those who are wondering, Anteros is the little brother of Eros (aka Cupid). Anteros is traditionally the god of requited love and the avenger of love that is scorned or unrequited. He is also incredibly hot.**

**Yay! Sasuke to the rescue! Sorry my fight scene sucked so bad, but since I don't actually have any _exprience _with fighting, I'm not sure I have enough knowledge of the... occurance... to _not _suck at fight scenes. At least this chapter's longer, right?**

**BAHAHA! I ENDED ON A CLIFFHANGER AND THERE'S _NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT! _HA!  
**


	8. Spitting Cobra

**Disclaimer: **Freaking Itachi made Sasuke make out with Gabby to distract her, so I had to bolt out the bathroom window. Am now hiding at Erika's house, since she is emotionally void (like Itachi pretends to be, only without the evil, contemptuous air he uses) and has mastered what I like to call "The Creepy Doll Stare."

Is it normal to not blink for like, five minutes at a time?

**Dedication: **To winning back friends you thought you had lost, and to realizing that an argument doesn't _have _to be the end of everything.

**Chapter Eight: Spitting Cobra**

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_How blind can you be – can't you see? It's not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower forsakes the tree; someday I'll learn to love these scars, still fresh from the red-hot blade of your words. Bye, bye, Beautiful…_

_

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_

When the rosette opened her eyes again, she was in an unfamiliar room that smelled like ramen and socks. The walls were a rather bland tan and white color combination, with a faux wood border running through the center to mark where one color ended and the other began. The ceiling was the same shade as the top halves of the walls. There weren't any windows in the room – probably an error of construction, since she could see lines that seemed to mark where there would soon be two windows. Decorating the walls was a calendar with a girl in a pink bikini, a wall scroll with the Japanese symbols for "victory" printed on it, and a poster declaring a store's half-price sale on all ramen. The poster had more than likely been stolen from whatever store had used it, since it was definitely not an antique.

She was lying in a bed that was so low it was almost like she was sleeping on a very warm, comfortable air mattress. Scratchy wool blankets had been laid over her body, and the pillow her head rested on was flatter than she was used to, as if it had been used every night for at least a year – obviously, she wasn't in somebody's guest room.

As memories of the park and the ugly Gorilla-Man with the bicycle came back to her, Sakura thought she heard someone moving outside. Immediately she tensed, unsure if whoever was coming in would be a friend or an enemy.

But then she started to hear two voices – one low and quiet so she could hardly hear it, and the other loud and demanding, higher-pitched and distinctly feminine – and let herself relax. If Ino was here, then she wasn't in some crack dealer's house or locked in some pervert's basement.

She rolled over onto her side and pretended to be asleep – Ino or no Ino, Sakura wasn't sure she wanted anyone to know she was awake.

"You let three big, ugly brutes almost kidnap my _sister?_" Ino's muffled screech sounded outraged. "How _could _you?!"

"The important thing… isn't hurt…" the other person's voice was still too low to make out all the words, which frustrated Sakura a little. "You should be grateful… close enough to… she'd be gone… would have happened to her…"

The door opened then, and she heard Ino's pounding footsteps – _one thump, two thump _– as her friend rushed over to the bed. The mattress jolted as Ino collided into it to stop herself.

"Sakura!" The girl in question flinched at the loudness of Ino's voice, then groaned and rolled back over to face the blonde.

"Hey, Ino," she said with a weak smile. "What time is it anyway? And what exactly happened to me? I remember going to the park… and I think someone tried to grab me…" Her pink eyebrows pulled together as she tried to lift memories from her mind that did not belong to her conscious recollection.

"Sasuke said you were jumped by three thugs – he said they were probably going to rape you or something…" Ino shuddered and glared at the rosette. "Any idea _why _they attacked _you, _Forehead? Since I can't imagine they would have bothered otherwise…"

The implication stung a little, but Sakura was used to it. She didn't notice Sasuke's jaw muscles flex as his teeth clicked together in irritation.

"Well… Jeez, I don't even remember what they looked like…" Sakura shook her head, her mind supplying her with an answer for her memory loss at the same time Sasuke decided to pipe up.

"You took a blow to the back of your head a few seconds after I got there," he said coolly. "But one of the guys looked like a gorilla. Fought like one, too."

"Oh… Oops…" Sakura shrank a little. "Yeah, uhm… the gorilla dude kind of pissed me off while I was walking to the park, so I threw a rock at him. He tried to run me over with his bicycle," she added when both her sister and Sasuke glared at her furiously. "And then he told _me _to watch where _I _was walking, so I hit him with a rock and made him flip over the handlebars. I didn't think he'd try to _molest _me for it! Zheesh…"

"You… total… _moron,_" Sasuke hissed, "I almost should have taken my time getting there, if that's the case."

He turned and stalked angrily out into the hallway, only to freeze mid-stride when Sakura yelled after him, "No one asked you to help me anyway, asshole, so stop acting like it was some freaking _job _you were forced to do! If you didn't want to save me, then you shouldn't have even bothered!"

This time his teeth snapped together much more audibly, and he turned to glare at her with eyes that shone red as blood. Both girls shrank back, though it was doubtful Sasuke even remembered Ino's presence at that point.

"I didn't say I _had _to save you," he snarled, "I said I shouldn't have been so worried about an annoying little _brat _like you, since obviously you were _stupid _enough to think you could get yourself in that mess without anything happening. Maybe you _need _to face the music once in a while, so that you can see the world doesn't revolve around you just because your parents are both _dead_." He turned and stalked away, disappearing around a corner.

Sakura sat quietly, shaking in anger and – though she wouldn't fess up to it – fear. Outside, she could hear Sasuke's low snarling and the sound of Naruto loudly coming to her defense. The sound of the front door slamming was like thunder.

_And wouldn't you just know all about what it's like to lose family, right Sasuke? _The rosette imagined how it would have been if, just this once, she had hurt him as badly as he had cut at her. _You would know yourself that the world turns away from orphaned little brats, wouldn't you? Why don't you start practicing what you preach – I know, you can try being a little less of an insensitive, selfish, arrogant piece of shit!_

But of course the scene that spun from that imagining only ended in a possible fistfight; there was no way Sasuke would have taken a dose of his own medicine without retaliating in some way that would undoubtedly leave her feeling even worse than she already did.

Besides, it would have been incredibly petty and cruel to lash out at him that way – that sort of reprisal was best kept in fantasy, where it could hurt no one.

And then the rosette's anger flared up again, rising in her throat and lungs like searing flames that roared for payback.

Who the hell did he think he was, lecturing her like that?! He wasn't her damn father – for all she knew, the bastard probably wanted her to get kidnapped, and had only helped her because he figured it would look bad if he didn't. And what kind of coward was he, anyway, if all he had for verbal ammunition was the ability to use someone's past against them? She was beginning to wonder what exactly she had seen in that kid that so attracted her to him. If he was like this with people he'd only known for a couple of _weeks_, how the hell would he behave around his latest girlfriend?

She was also beginning to wonder if maybe his temper had been what sent most girls packing. Or his crass way of speaking to people he didn't like. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more the snide little punk resembled a snarling wolf, unwilling to let anyone get too close to it, even if that person was a friend.

She didn't look up when another person padded into the room – she knew it would likely be Naruto, come to reassure her that he would beat the shit out of Sasuke as soon as he caught up to him. The thought calmed her enough to be able to grin when the foxlike boy did exactly as she expected.

**»»««**

Sasuke was having a similar bout of righteous anger as he walked home from Naruto's apartment. He kicked an innocent pinecone out of his way, sending it scuttling into traffic as he stalked forward with all the dignity of a pouting three-year-old.

That… that… _ditz! _What the hell had she been _thinking? _Was she even more naïve than he'd originally thought, or did she just think she was untouchable? And what's worse, she went after an obvious _thug _who'd already gotten a good look at her! (Although, the pink hair _was _sort of obvious.)

The younger Uchiha let out an angry snarl as he replayed the way Sakura had _oh so casually _told them she had provoked the men into attacking her, looking more sheepish than upset with herself. As if she pulled stupid stunts likes this all the time, and was only worried about getting scolded now that the danger was behind her. Of all the useless, brain-dead, pig-headed…

He stopped himself there, feeling that he had already crossed a line he should have never even gone _near. _Another memory – this time of the look of agony that flashed in her eyes when he mentioned her parents – brought about a sick, twisting feeling in his gut that a normal person would have recognized as guilt. However, since Sasuke is a total asshole, he managed to convince himself that he'd taken too many hits to the stomach during the fight, and now his stomach was starting to react to it again. Lord only knew he'd been a mess when he'd staggered into Naruto's apartment with an unconscious bubblegum-haired female in his sore arms. Naruto leaping at him and demanding to know what had happened to the idiot hadn't helped much, either…

_Sasuke heard a low thump and the small, surprised gasp that escaped Sakura's lips. He turned to see the girl hanging limply in the third bastard's arms, and the bastard in question wore a small, sick grin on his face as he stared hungrily down at her._

_An unreasonable fury had taken control of the younger Uchiha then, and he flew at the man with an animalistic snarl, fist clenched until he felt his fingernails pierce the skin of his palm. His knuckles connected with the man's nose, and the feel of cartilage and bone crumbling under the blow almost made Sasuke want to do more to the slime ball. But the punk had dropped Sakura to grab his nose, and Sasuke had to catch her before her body could fall to the wet grass._

_Gently, he lowered her still form to the grass, laying her on her side in something that was as close to the recovery position he'd learned in his first aid training as he could manage in his haste._

_Before he could stand, the thug he'd just hit kicked Sasuke in the jaw, and the soccer-style blow sent the teen flying up and back into the restraining arms of the man's friend. Gorilla-Man and the other man took turns ramming their fists and knees into Sasuke's stomach, laughing as they pounded the defenseless boy ruthlessly._

_Somehow, Sasuke managed to get his bearings enough to throw his legs up and kick Gorilla-Man in the stomach with both feet, sending him flying into his friend. As they stumbled to the ground, Sasuke threw his head back and slammed the back of his skull into the front teeth of the man holding him; his opponent's hands flew to his face, allowing Sasuke to break free of his restraints and landing on the balls of his feet with a grunt. Then he stood and faced the three thugs, his eyes burning as they began to blaze bright red…_

_He wasn't entirely sure what happened after that. His vision completely faded into solid red, and he was only aware of the blows he landed on each new opponent – only aware of the way bones continued to break under each punch or kick, of the way that, at one point, an arm popped out of its socket as its owner screamed in agony._

_It could have been seconds or an hour before the bastards finally ran off. Sasuke was vaguely aware of the small, quickly-growing voice of reason that whispered to his furious mind that he had a very, very good reason __**not **__to follow them and finish what he'd started._

_His eyes stopped burning, and he could see regularly again as he turned to retrieve Sakura and take her to his friend's apartment…_

He ground his teeth, agitated at the memory of having to put up with Naruto and Kiba's incessant ranting about how he had better not have been the one who hurt her and Neji's arrogant little comments about how protective he was of the rosette. As if the Hyuga wouldn't have helped her, too, if he'd been able to (although, since this was _Neji _he was assuming this about…)

The memory of the look on the Hyuga's face when, after making fun of Sasuke for becoming violently ill and having to pay homage to the porcelain god because of the hits to the stomach he'd taken, the raven-haired teen had thrown his leg between the other boy's legs did bring Sasuke some sense of revenge, at least.

The younger Uchiha never did get around to truly recognizing the faint territorial drive that seemed to be present during the entire memory. He pushed it and the stomach flips out of his mind as his house came into view. His brother stood leaning against the front window, arms crossed as he stared motionlessly at his younger brother. Then he turned and disappeared into the living room.

Sasuke could see a slightly beat-up red Ford Taurus in the driveway next to his brother's Camry. It was the car his brother had grudgingly bought for a friend of theirs after several long months of begging, pleading, and beating the shit out of the friend's old rusty pickup – which, according to the friend, had at one point been blue.

Great, so Deidara – and possibly Kisame and Sasori – would hear everything that had happened when Itachi forced him to spill… if the local news station hadn't already gotten word of it. Sasuke's night just kept getting _better _and_ better._

**»»««**

"Don't worry about it, Sakura," Kiba growled, "Sasuke's always a prick – especially to girls. It isn't personal, don't worry."

They were sitting around the coffee table in Naruto's living/dining room. Kiba and Naruto were trying desperately to cheer Sakura up by badmouthing Sasuke – and occasionally Neji – in every way they could think of. Ino, still furious with Sakura for idiotically antagonizing a street thug, was attempting to enrage her sister by flirting with a severely uninterested Neji, who had been innocently sitting on the couch and trying to play Guitar Hero until the psychotic blonde girl shoved his face into her chest. At the moment he was suffocating and flailing madly against Ino's iron-strong hold on his head.

Unfortunately for all four of the accompanying parties, the rosette didn't seem to be paying much attention to them at all. She just sat staring blankly at the table, although every once in a while a look of utter hatred would cross into her eyes that made Naruto and Kiba cringe away from her.

"Really, Sakura-chan," Naruto tried again, "Sasuke's always saying stupid crap like that…"

"To _me_," Sakura finally hissed. She raised her cold emerald eyes from the table to glare at Naruto. "He says that to _me_, because he'd apparently rather watch me _die _than put up with me as much as he does. Don't even try to deny it," she added when both Kiba and Naruto opened their mouths to object, "If it wasn't true, do you really think either of us would be at each other's throats all the time? He hates me, and it's obvious that I need to get over this stupid little crush I have on him, because obviously he's never going to see me as anything more than another stupid little _fangirl_ who wants to screw him just so she can brag about it to anyone who'll listen!"

Neither of the two boys had any answers to that one – until then, they hadn't even realized she _had _any interest in Sasuke, much less an attraction strong enough that any words that managed to spew from the boy's mouth when he was upset had the potential to wound her as deeply as they seemed to now.

Ino and Neji, having heard the sudden outburst, stopped… unwillingly making out… and stared at Sakura. Contempt shone in their eyes, but for different reasons entirely.

"Yeah, you'd better start working on getting over him, Forehead," Ino snarled, pushing Neji onto the floor. "Because I already told you he's _mine_. I flirted with him first, I get to have him first."

"And I already told _you _I couldn't care less if you _did _want him, because for all I care, he could die from some ball-shrinking, penis-severing cancer and choke on his own tongue when he tried to say goodbye to anyone he happened to _not _hate!" Kiba and Naruto dove for cover behind the television set as Sakura slammed both palms into the wood, cracking the glass cover on it. "So you can go ahead and get dumped on your ass like every other cheap hooker he's dated, and you can go ahead and make more little bastards just like him when he knocks you up because he's enough of a mother(censored) to lie about using a damn rubber!"

The rosette pushed away from the coffee table and stalked towards the front door.

"I'm going home," she snarled. "You can figure out how to get home by yourself, because the last thing I need after almost being kidnapped and raped is to hear you blather about how much I had better not be in love with your twisted version of Prince Charming!" She reached the door then, and threw it open so violently that it chipped the paint where the handle crashed into the wall.

"Thanks for letting me stay over," she called to Naruto.

There was silence in the apartment as she disappeared into the already-dark streets; the four remaining teenagers stared at each other with identical looks of shock. Even Neji seemed surprised that sunny, happy little Sakura had suddenly turned into Godzilla.

"Ino?" Naruto squeaked after a moment.

"Yes, Naruto?"

"…I think you just broke your sister."

**»»««**

Sasuke didn't stay at his house very long. He left soon after the jibes about being a better boyfriend and looking into marital counseling had started up. Sakura wasn't even his girlfriend, and yet Itachi's friends were making fun of him the way they always did whenever he went through a nasty breakup – which, he had to admit, was something that happened pretty often these days. He had heard his brother start yelling at them (well, his brother tended to use the "calm but deadly" method, but it was just as effective as yelling) after he'd slammed the front door shut, but that didn't make him feel any better.

In fact, if he was honest with himself, it only made things worse to know that Itachi would never quit looking after him – since the accident, Sasuke had never really felt like he would ever be good enough to deserve that much concern from anyone.

The teenager stalked through the dark city streets, not really planning to do anything more than make a circuit around a few blocks before heading home again. Somehow, his path led him to the park again, and he was surprised to see Sakura sitting at the same bench where she'd been attacked, lying with her legs crossed and resting on the arm of the bench with her head propped up against the opposite arm.

He walked along the paved walkway, trying to get closer without her noticing, wanting to discover what could possibly draw her _back _to this place only an hour after she'd been jumped. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and it looked like she was laughing silently to herself.

And then he was close enough to see the silvery tears running down the sides of her face, and he realized that she was _crying_.

Maybe this was her way of dealing with shock – returning to the scene of the incident and crying over it until she was able to calm down and return to her normal routine.

She still hadn't noticed him, and he felt awkward – and a little like a stalker – just standing there and watching her cry, so he decided to go ahead and ask her what the hell she was doing here.

"Sakura, should you really be out here on your own? Or are you trying to get yourself abducted?"

She flinched at the sound of his voice, then quickly brushed the tears away with the heels of her hands before sitting up and turning to glare at him. For a minute the hybrid of hatred and agony on her face made his blood freeze.

"The hell do _you _care, Sasuke?" she hissed at him. "You'd probably break into a touchdown dance if I was taken and never heard from again. At least then you wouldn't have to freaking deal with me all the time."

Was _that _the reason behind her coming here – to cry over what he'd said to her in a place where very few people were likely to show up? She really was annoying…

"You don't even have a jacket," he said instead of answering her question, "If you freeze to death, your sister will be the only on of your family left." He watched her flinch at the words. "That's a little selfish, don't you think?"

She glared at him, looking very much like she was getting ready to say something she might regret later. He braced himself for whatever brilliant comeback she'd come up with, not wanting to lose his temper if she said the same thing he'd told her before leaving Naruto's apartment. Even Sasuke knew better than to hit a girl – he had _some_ morals.

But instead of making a snide remark about his family, the rosette simply said, "Look, I don't like you, and very obviously you don't like me, so why don't we just stop interacting altogether? I'll ignore you, you'll ignore me, and we'll probably both be so much happier that way." There was a strange, sacrificial look in her eyes that was only barely evident underneath the anger – as if she was somehow giving up something to make the deal with him.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. He understood where she might think he didn't like her – because he didn't, he found her to be incredibly irritating and loud-mouthed at the absolute worst times – and he was already aware that she couldn't care less if he disappeared off the face of the planet. But the words sounded rehearsed, as if she'd been practicing them so that she could say it without messing up.

"Fine," he answered curtly, "That should make things a lot more peaceful for me."

He turned and stalked away, not wanting to hear the low swearing that hissed through the rosette's clenched teeth.

Girls were such a nuisance…

* * *

**Author's Note: This lyrics used are from "Bye, Bye, Beautiful" by Nightwish. Squee.**

**I present to you: Sasuke and Sakura, the most romantically retarded creatures on the planet! I love making them fight. X3 And it may seem as though I'm rushing through the story, but remember: this is a **_**high school **_**romance story. Come on, you know how it works – only big things like bombings, floods, and fights actually stick out in the teenager's memory. I would know. XD**

**Yes, Deidara owns *coughmadeItachibuyhimcough* a red Ford Taurus. When you're friends with a millionaire, you get favors. And Deidara, Sasori, and Kisame will make another appearance later on – this was just the cameo appearance.**

**Next chapter: On with the ignoring!**


	9. Everybody's Fool

**Disclaimer: **-reads from a script- I do not own Naruto, nor do I own any part of the Naruto franchise or characters. I do, however, own Madara Uchiha, who has officially been disowned as of January 14, 2010. There, can I write the next chapter now?!

**Dedication: **To every Valentine's Day spent alone, waiting for anyone to show you they're concerned enough to give you even the tiniest piece of chocolate.

**Chapter Nine: Everybody's Fool**

_

* * *

The city is at war – playtime for the young and rich. Ignore me if you see me, 'cause I just don't give a shit…_

* * *

The next day at school was awkward and very frighteningly peaceful.

In P.E., even the coach continued to give Sasuke and Sakura worried glances as they very coolly stayed on opposite sides of the gym. No one dared to pit Sasuke's team against Sakura's team that day – they were too afraid of what might happen if the two were forced to compete against each other. Kiba and Naruto found themselves wondering when the school was going to blow up and send everyone to Kingdom Come.

Needless to say, no one was rowdy or obnoxious until the shower bell rang, at which point everyone charged the hell out of the gym and sped through their clothing change so they could get outside before a missile hit the building or something.

Hinata Hyuga – Neji's cousin, who had P.E. during first period with a different teacher than Sakura – watched the rosette nervously out of the corner of her eye as she changed back into her street clothes. She waffled back and forth between asking Sakura what was wrong and letting the girl tell her if and when she felt like it until Sakura made her decision for her.

"Hinata, have you ever to put up with an insufferable jackass that you had to put up with without causing a physical fight between you and that person?" the rosette asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Hinata's wide pale eyes flickered up to the rosette's face. "Oh, y-yes, I know what that's like. M-my cousin is Neji, remember?"

"Oh, right," Sakura said, grinning nervously. "Sorry, I kind of forgot. So, how the heck do you put up with Neji, anyway? Doesn't it get a little old, putting up with his PMS-ing all the time?"

"N-not really. I've just gotten used to it, th-that's all." The Hyuga smiled a very friendly smile at Sakura. The rosette didn't _seem _so bad – maybe her reputation as a troublemaker and a boyfriend stealer wasn't really something she earned? She remembered how a lot of the girls who made such accusations against Sakura had also happened to be past girlfriends of Sasuke's. Maybe they were just jealous because Sasuke seemed to have his eye on her now – ignoring the fact that that "eye" was usually dark with irritation.

"How the heck do you get used to a guy who acts like he's god?" Sakura muttered to herself. Unfortunately for her, Hinata heard the grumbling and rushed to defend her cousin.

"I-it's not like that," she stammered. There was the tiniest defensive tone to her timid, quiet voice. "H-he's just been through a really r-rough time recently, that's all. When he was younger, he wasn't so bad – it's just… he's gotten a little bitter."

Sakura wasn't quiet sure how to respond to that one. Was there _any _kid here who's life didn't totally suck?

"So, why are you f-fighting with Sasuke-kun?" Hinata asked. "I thought you l-liked him, but now you're acting like y-you hate being anywhere near him…"

"Who told you I liked him?" Sakura asked, trying to keep her voice light and joking as her eyebrows pulled together.

"W-well, I sort of thought that's wh-what it was." The other girl's stammering became more frequent in her embarrassment. "I-I mean, you never really l-looked like you were _j-just _afraid of him… It was l-like you were sort of… drawn to him, I-I guess…"

Geez, Hinata was perceptive, wasn't she? Sakura very carefully examined the harmless wisps of clouds as she tried to think of a way to answer that. It wasn't like this shy kid had been _wrong _in her assessment…

"At first, I did like him," she finally admitted. "But… well, we kind of got into an argument last night, while we were at Naruto's place, and we both said some pretty foul things to each other." The rosette couldn't help but cringe, squeezing her eyes shut and scrunching her nose as she added, "I kind of told him to stay away from me, or to ignore me when he couldn't go somewhere else. I figured it would be a better alternative to getting into another argument like that again."

Hinata nodded, looking at the ground as she processed what Sakura told her. Her thin eyebrows knitted together in a small frown. It almost looked as though she was trying to see the situation – as much of it as Sakura had told her – through the rosette's eyes, to justify somehow the other girl's actions.

"Do you think m-maybe… maybe he m-might have liked you? B-before?" Hinata asked.

The bell rang then, saving Sakura from having to answer her.

"Sorry, Hinata," she called over her shoulder, "I have to get to my next class. Maybe we can talk tomorrow or something, okay?" She waved and smiled before jogging into the throng of students, leaving Hinata to wonder if perhaps her assumption had hit a little _too _close to home. After all, it wasn't like Sakura to forget which classes she shared with someone.

She shook her head, trying not to worry about it as she followed after Sakura.

**»»««**

Computer/Careers was pretty much the same as P.E. had been.

Sakura sat at her computer, her body turned just enough to make it plain that she wasn't going to acknowledge Sasuke even if he pulled out a rocket launcher and blew the place up. Sasuke was also ignoring his neighbor, and had his right hand propped against the side of his head as if to block the bright pink hair from his line of sight. Both had similarly acerbic looks on their faces, and both seemed to be having a hard time concentrating on their lesson for the day.

Tenten – the girl who sat at Sasuke's left – was very subtly trying to scoot her chair away from the two without making it entirely obvious what she was doing. Hinata was watching the two teenagers in front of her with a look that was now more concerned than terrified. Something was _definitely _wrong there – where was the friendly arguing, the threats, the barely-noticeable glaring at each other? Ignoring the way they sat, it was as though neither Sakura nor Sasuke realized the other was even there.

Sakura certainly realized Sasuke was there – his presence was like a vat of acid, too dangerous and _evil _to ignore (and she wasn't faring any better with ignoring the tiny voice at the back of her head that told her she was being incredibly childish by referring to him as "evil"). She was fairly certain she would rather be sitting next to the Gorilla-Man than the raven-haired boy next to her at the moment. At least the Gorilla-Man hadn't ever had anything shoved up his ass – other than Sasuke's foot. Sasuke walked around like someone had raped him with a two-by-four and forgotten to take it out when they were finished.

A small, slightly hysteric giggle slid through her lips before she could control herself. Half of the students dove under their tables, waiting for disaster to strike.

Hinata saw Sasuke, still brooding and apparently ignoring Sakura, stiffen and turn slightly, as if he was glaring at the rosette while trying to make it look like he hadn't noticed the little outburst at all. The Hyuga sighed inwardly – Uchiha Sasuke was so easy to irritate, it seemed…

In truth, Sasuke _was _trying to glare discreetly at his neighbor, but it was more because he was sure that the giggling had been caused by some snide thought about him. The wicked amusement and plain _meanness _that glittered in her eyes when she saw his glare pretty much confirmed his suspicions.

There was an irritated _ahem _from the back of the room, and both Sakura and Sasuke whipped away from each other as their classmates slowly crawled back into their seats.

_Idiot female, _Sasuke grumbled to himself.

_Stupid, stuck-up, testosterone male, _Sakura snarled back – though, to be fair, neither had any idea what exactly the other was thinking.

The morning break bell rang far too late for anyone's taste, and Sasuke and Sakura, though they twitched irritably, decided to let their terrified classmates get out before they packed their own bags and headed out.

They stood, slammed their chairs under their places at the table, and moved for the door at the same time, almost as if they were moving in a perfectly-synchronized routine they had practiced extensively.

And then they both hit the door at the same time.

"Ladies first," Sasuke bit out, focusing on the wall next to Sakura's head.

"Then why haven't you left the room yet?" Sakura retorted in a hiss. She settled for glaring at his shirt collar – for once the bastard was actually wearing a t-shirt, not that the pink haired teenager cared about that. The fabric almost seemed to melt under her ice-green gaze.

Sasuke growled and stalked outside, muttering something under his breath. Sakura stuck her tongue out at his retreating form before following him outside and immediately going in the opposite direction from his little emo locker bay.

Sasuke tried not to notice the obscenely bright pink hair or the bright mint green outfit that stalked towards the tri, but the more he tried to ignore her, the harder it was to see any colors she wasn't wearing at the moment. The younger Uchiha growled and slouched farther down the lockers he was leaning against, closing his eyes as an irritated snarl twisted his features.

"Girl troubles, Uchiha?"

_Son of a…_

"Hyuga, there are probably more irritating things in this world than the sound of your voice, but I'm pretty sure the grating noise you keep making has driven them from my memory at the moment." Black obsidian eyes flickered open in a scowl.

Neji merely smirked from where he stood leaning against the lockers in front of Sasuke, arms crossed and girlishly long hair pulled back for once to ward off the overbearing heat that assaulted them today.

"Give me a break, Uchiha," Neji continued, sneering Sasuke's last name. "Everyone can tell you've got your eye on that irritating little brat. What's with the sudden 'I-hate-you' bullshit? Afraid it'll go public or something?"

"For your information, it was _her _idea." Sasuke fought the urge to roll his eyes; he hated dealing with this asshole. "And I do _not _'have my eye on her,' you idiot. I wouldn't be able to show my face in public if I was dating someone with bright pink hair."

Neji snorted derisively. "Right. I'm real sure you're worried about your publicity. What are you, a worldwide celebrity? Nobody outside of this state even _knows _you."

"Don't you have some poor, innocent girl to traumatize by pretending to be her boyfriend for all of fifteen minutes?"

"At least they don't blindly come to me," Neji taunted. He grinned when Sasuke twitched furiously. "I actually have to work at earning their trust. What's it like screwing the same airhead every time you get a new girlfriend, Sasuke? Doesn't it get a little boring after the first fifty dozen times?"

He was only barely able to dodge the punch Sasuke threw at his face.

**»»««**

Sakura's third period English class was buzzing excitedly when she slid into her seat next to a brunette with pretty blue eyes and a rather quiet, thoughtful disposition. More than once, the rosette heard the names of both Hyuga Neji and Uchiha Sasuke murmured or whispered among her classmates.

"What's all the fuss about?" Sakura grumbled irritably.

"Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuga Neji were in a fistfight during break today." Sakura jumped, startled by the smooth, muted voice of the girl next to her.

"Excuse me?" Sakura asked quietly, turning to look at her neighbor.

The girl – Amatsu, that was her name – looked back at her quietly, as though she were measuring up the competition or something.

"Neji apparently said something that rubbed Sasuke the wrong way," she continued quietly. Her voice was deep, and oddly it reminded Sakura of honey, though there was nothing remotely sweet about it; in fact, it was almost contemptuous, as though the girl thought lesser of both of the involved males for fighting to begin with. "Sasuke took it about as well as anyone could expect him to, and apparently they were idiotic enough to let their testosterone decide what to do instead of using their damned heads."

The girl's pretty face twisted into an unimpressed sneer.

"Oh," Sakura responded brilliantly. She was trying to figure this girl out – her voice wasn't necessarily _accented_; it just had a sort of flow to it that was unusual, a sort of fluidity that made her quiet, clam words sound like spiteful music.

The girl's lips pulled into a smirk that almost mirrored Sasuke's.

"You're probably wondering why I'm talking to you all of a sudden," she guessed.

"Well," Sakura said, scrambling for the right words, "It's just that you only ever talk to the teacher, or when someone actually asks you something, so I figured you were kind of… uhm…"

"Antisocial?" Amatsu finished. A sad, knowing smile flitted across her face for a moment, and her eyes seemed to harden infinitesimally.

Sakura nodded mutely, and the girl laughed quietly; her laughter matched her eyes.

"Well, he kind of wore off on me, I suppose." She smirked at Sakura's questioning look and added, "I was his very first. We lasted seven months – I tried to be patient, in all honesty. But in the end, it was too much, even for me. None of his others since then have had even a fraction of the temperance I had – or the brains to realize that's what he needs the most from a girl."

Sakura realized who Amatsu meant by "he" without even needing to ask, but she figured that was the response the girl would be expecting.

"Sasuke?" she asked timidly.

"Good guess," Amatsu laughed, and then she went silent as the class finally settled down to read. Sakura turned to her own book, trying to concentrate on the sappy romance story without turning the characters into people she happened to know. It was very hard; Amatsu's name seemed to pop up in place of the supposed heroine's name, and since the hero also had dark hair and smoldering eyes, it was easy to imagine that the story would end bitterly.

**»»««**

It was later, near the end of third period, when Sakura was able to talk to Amatsu again. The teacher had assigned the class to do group work on some stupid little short story they'd read, and Amatsu, in an act that surprised everyone, had willingly turned to Sakura and asked to be her partner. It was the first time that school year that the antisocial, soft-spoken Amatsu had worked of her own volition with a team.

Naturally, Sakura and Amatsu were the first team to finish, and while several students grumbled about "spreading the geniuses around," the two girls quickly started talking about Amatsu's ill-fated relationship with Sasuke again. Amatsu started the conversation after realizing how uncomfortable Sakura was with revisiting it.

"Don't be ashamed of yourself," the brunette advised with a short sigh. "It's only natural to be curious about something like that."

"It's just…" Sakura fumbled a second before finding the right words. "Well, you couldn't have decided overnight that it wouldn't work… You must have seen it was coming a long time before that, right?"

"Yeah, I did," Amatsu said. The sad, aging smile was back on her face, turning her eyes to stone. "About three or four weeks before I finally broke it off, I–"

"_You _broke up with _him?_" The rosette couldn't help but ask. It seemed so strange to know there were other females besides herself who would be able to walk away from _the _Uchiha Sasuke. She shut her mouth apologetically when Amatsu smirked at the little outburst.

"I know, no one else believed I'd walked away from him, either," Amatsu said acidly. "Everyone you ask will say that's just my way of trying to get back at him for dumping me on my ass, but it's nice to have someone understand." And her sharp blue eyes flickered knowingly at Sakura.

Sakura knew how that felt, at least. She was also glad to have someone who understood her unwillingness to tackle Sasuke every time he walked by, even if it was for different reasons.

"Anyway, about a month before I left him, I started to get this… feeling." For the first time since Sakura had spoken to her, Amatsu seemed to struggle for the most accurate way to describe the beginning of the end. "All of a sudden, it started to seem hollow – like I was faking it unintentionally. I guess I was such a good actor that Sasuke never noticed." She snorted derisively. "I started paying more attention to the way I reacted to different situations with him. The more I watched myself, the more I realized that the only reason I was really staying with him happened to be his brother's friends."

She laughed at the look on Sakura's face.

"Not like that," she explained with an amused grin, "His friends… Sasori was too old, only good for a chess game or political talk. Kisame was a brute, but his jokes could be really funny sometimes. Deidara was a nutcase – nothing more to him. But they were more like brothers than friends; they would all listen when I needed someone to talk to. Deidara was so furious when I told him I was having problems with Sasuke. He wanted to kick the snot out of the little twerp, but I managed to talk him out of it. Kisame cheered me up by telling jokes about Sasuke that were so _rude _that I had to laugh… although I realize now that I might have been laughing because they were true. Sasori just played chess with me, and it always seemed to me that he lt me win when I was in a foul mood, but I could never get him to admit it."

"What about Itachi?" Sakura asked quietly.

"Oh, Itachi," Amatsu sighed. "I've never seen anyone more torn over what to do. It always seemed like a part of him _wanted _to help me, but there was a stronger part that just wanted to let his little brother learn from his own mistakes. He meant well," she added when Sakura frowned, "it's just that he's always trying to make Sasuke tougher, stronger, and I guess in Itachi's mind letting me get hurt was no real price to pay. I'd probably feel the same in his shoes."

"How did you… you know, how did you…?" After haring what Amatsu had told her, Sakura wondered if saying the words wouldn't be rubbing salt in the wounds.

"Ditch him?" The cold, acerbic smile that touched Amatsu's face turned her back into the frightening, unknown female Sakura was used to. "Easy. I waited until we argued – it was so often at that point that any time we _weren't _arguing, we usually weren't anywhere near enough to each other to argue. So I practiced until I could say the lines without stumbling over the words or breaking down in tears, and the next time we argued, I used my speech and him and stomped out the door. It was a very cliché ending." She let out a cold chuckle at herself.

"But you still love him." It was an assumption, not a question.

Agony swept over Amatsu's face before she controlled her features, forcing them back into their normal, carefree façade.

"Yes" she finally answered. "I do still love him. But I'm wise enough to know my limits. Sometimes…" She stopped to clear her throat quietly. "Sometimes love just isn't enough. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to let them go, to let them figure their own life out before trying to get involved in it. Sometimes it's better to forget."

The bell rang, and Amatsu gathered her things and left swiftly, head raised proudly as she swept outside, leaving a stunned rosette glued to her seat.

**

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Author's Note: Chapter title is the title of one of Evanescence's songs. Lyrics used are from "The City Is At War" by Cobra Starship. Booyakasha.**

**Poor Amatsu. I actually cried writing her part (and yes, both the title and the lyrics refer to Amatsu.) She will play a mildly important role later on in the story, but for right now she'll just be Sakura's personal crying shoulder.**

**Next Chapter: Neji and Sasuke in the principal's office. Oh, the fun I shall have…**


	10. The Devil's Laughing

**Disclaimer: **After a long custody battle with my friend, Courtney, over the ownership – er, _guardianship _– of Madara, I am proud to announce we have agreed to joint custody. I get him in winter and fall; she gets him during summer and spring. Yay!

**Dedication: **To all the morons who think it's funny to irritate your local class loner. It's not. Stop it. We know where to find someone to make shrapnel grenades out of a lighter, gasoline, and an emptied-out eggshell filled with BB pellets.

**Chapter Ten: The Devil's Laughing**

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_My life's your entertainment; you watch it while I live it. I walk, you follow. I talk, you holler. You're waiting for me to lose it; I guess I'm just here for your amusement._

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Hyuga Neji was not a very patient person. Nor did he enjoy being forced to wait on someone for any reason. _Especially _when that person was at a higher rank than he was. Wasn't it bad enough he had to follow Tsunade's rules? Did she really have to rub it in by making him wait _half an hour?_

While he was on that train of thought, why in _God's name _did these damn chairs have to be nothing but solid mother-CENSORED- wood? Did she _enjoy _pissing the delinquent students off like this, or was it just a bad habit she had no control over? Not to mention the puke-colored walls and butt-ugly figurines that lined every shelf and the only windowsill in the room…

The hell was _that? _Neji resisted the urge to grunt in disgust at the oddly-shaped ironwood figurine sitting near the front of the principal's desk. It _kind of _looked like a cross between a monkey, drunkard, and beetle, and it appeared to have been intentionally carved to look like it was mooning whoever saw it. Neji found his blood pressure (and the urge the set the drunken monkey-bug thing on fire) rising at a frighteningly increased speed.

Next to him, Sasuke's thoughts weren't really on the principal's office at all. The younger Uchiha was still fuming over what Neji had said to him before – and during – the fight. Somehow the comments about how he shouldn't have dumped his "pink-haired slut" so easily had made Sasuke see red again. It was only the fact that Hatake Kakashi and Umino Iruka pulled the two boys off each other that had kept him from murdering Neji.

Not that Iruka hadn't needed help keeping a good hold on Sasuke when Neji had rather stupidly pushed his luck by yelling, "Maybe she'll decide she'd rather go with someone who hasn't blown every other shot at a relationship he's had," while Kakashi dragged him towards the principal's office.

So now the two boys sat back-to-back, glaring at their walls while they waited for the idiot principal to get in the damn room. The static surging between them could probably have blown a marshmallow up… assuming one was brave enough to disturb their angry, silent ranting by throwing marshmallows at them.

Hee…

**»»««**

Meanwhile, Sakura was stuck in Algebra II, trying to stay awake through the teacher's incredibly dull speech about numbers and equations… -yawn- and bunnies…

The lunch bell rang, jolting Sakura awake. As she scrambled to pack her things, her (obnoxiously heavy) algebra book accidentally landed on the foot of one of her classmates. He grunted and stepped back, sliding his foot neatly out from under the hardcover book.

"Sorry!" Sakura mumbled, flushing with embarrassment as she snagged her book from the floor and shoved it into her backpack (which had somehow magically _shrunk _since school had started a few weeks before. Sakura couldn't figure out what the problem was — I mean, it couldn't be the five extra textbooks she suddenly had to cart around, right?)

"It's fine," the boy said, walking past her before she could look up. The rosette turned to get a better look at him and felt the air leave her lungs.

The boy was probably only a little taller than she was, but he carried himself with the sort of challenging air that made those around him give him plenty of personal space. He had a shock of messy, dark red hair (although he had no eyebrows — is was likely that he waxed them off, and recently, judging by the reddish dots along his now-nonexistent eyebrow lines) and eyes that were the color of electric blue ice. His skin, though a little dull in color, looked as though it was perfectly smooth, like a stone worried by a river current for decades.

He might have been handsome, but for the intimidating air about him that was so different from Sasuke's arrogant style that even Sakura was a little wary of the boy, and did not try to catch up to him as he left the classroom. In fact, she waited until she could see him turn the corner around the building across the walkway from the math department before she even considered moving out of her seat to go find her sister for lunch.

"That's Gaara," an irritatingly familiar voice sneered next to the rosette. Sakura turned to see the hideous redhead she was unfortunate enough to sit next to — Karin, or at least, Sakura was pretty sure that was her name — standing a little too close. Her revoltingly bright purple tube top made Sakura's eyes water, and she wasn't even looking at it. An unpleasant smirk was plastered across the other girl's face.

"You mean the redhead I dropped my book on?" Sakura asked, trying to feign civility and restrain from hitting Karin for being so ugly.

"Obviously," Karin sniffed, pushing her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose. "Who'd you _think _I meant, idiot?" She eyed Sakura for a second, as if waiting for her to lunge at her, but when the rosette managed to exert enough willpower to keep herself rooted in place again, the redhead sniffed and moved even closer, so she could sneer in Sakura's face. Her opposite nearly gagged on the heavy cinnamon gum scent coming off her breath.

"You'd better start looking at your other options in the boyfriend department, girlie," Karin hissed. "Sasuke is _mine, _you got that? Maybe Gaara will be able to look at that disgusting pink hair of yours — a freak for a freak, right?" She turned and flounced away, leaving Sakura to fume before she remembered she had to meet up with Ino for lunch. Grumbling many foul things under her breath, the rosette stalked in the opposite direction from Karin.

On her way towards the parking lot, Sakura caught sight of Amatsu headed towards the library — without a food tray or even any chip bags that Sakura could see. She looked resigned, maybe even a little bored, as though she had nothing better to do than haunt the library's computer lab until someone got freaked out and gave her a computer.

Sakura felt a surge of pity as she remembered the look of pain that had only been barely masked by the fierce determination on Amatsu's face during English. It seemed the girl didn't even have any friends to hang out with, and Sakura had a feeling Amatsu's claim of dumping Sasuke on his ass might at the very least be part of the reason behind that. Many of the girls who swooned over Sasuke tended to behave in a manner similar to a pack of feral dogs, often snarling at outsiders who didn't like him and spreading ugly rumors about his past girlfriends.

After a millisecond's hesitation, Sakura trotted over to the library doors, meeting Amatsu just as the other girl was about to go inside. The brunette looked surprised (and Sakura thought she also seemed a little wary) to see her classmate again so soon, but after a moment her features settled into a calm, easy smile — though Sakura noticed she kept her eyes open enough to watch her.

"Hey, Sakura," she said, raising her voice above the clamor of the packed campus. "What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with my sister and me for lunch," Sakura explained. "We're headed to Burger King."

Amatsu's lips twitched as though she were fighting a smirk, and her blue eyes flashed shrewdly. "Thought I looked a little lonely, did you?" she asked.

Sakura nodded, hoping the other girl wouldn't be offended. To her relief, Amatsu shrugged and let out the first light-hearted chuckle Sakura had heard from her all school year. Her eyes, usually as warm and friendly as a pair of stones, softened in a strange mix of relief and gratitude, as though she had been expecting Sakura to come tell her she'd made up with Sasuke and was already screwing him in the bathrooms.

"Well, I don't have much else to do," Amatsu said. "Sure, I'd love to come with you. Deidara told me he and the guys were headed to the BK, too — maybe you'll get to meet them. I know you'll like Deidara," she added with a wicked glint in her eyes.

"What's he like?" the rosette asked as they headed towards the parking lot.

"Oh, Deidara's an artistic kind of guy," Amatsu said, waving her hand as if it didn't mean much that he liked creating things. "He believes in art that lasts only for a moment; he and Sasori get into arguments about that frequently."

"What kind of art does Sasori appreciate?"

"The everlasting sort, like sculptures and paintings." Amatsu shrugged in a very delicate manner, something she might have picked up from Itachi.

They'd reached the parking lot now, and Ino, who had been scowling impatiently, drew back in surprise when she saw Sakura's companion. Amatsu misread the blonde's surprise as hostility and hesitated mid-step.

"Ino, this is Amatsu," Sakura said. "She's one of my English classmates. Amatsu, this is my sister, Ino Yamanaka."

Ino and Amatsu eyed each other warily, and baby blue eyes met sapphire blue eyes in a hard, wary stare down.

Ino broke the silence first.

"Hi, Amatsu," she said, grinning suddenly. "Good to meet you."

"Likewise," Amatsu said simply, smiling just enough to be polite.

"Are you, uhm, a friend of Sakura's?" The blonde cast a wary glare over Amatsu's shoulder at her sister.

"Well," Amatsu chuckled, "I wouldn't say _friend_… More like a… a good acquaintance. We only just started talking to each other today."

"Amatsu looked kind of lonely, and she didn't have much to do during lunch, so I thought it would be okay if I invited her to come with us," Sakura told Ino quickly. "I'm right, right? I mean, it's okay if she comes along and everything, right?"

"Sure, sure," Ino said, waving her hand dismissively. "Now, where's our ride…?"

"Ehm… ride?" Sakura repeated.

**»»««**

"Well, well, well," Tsunade growled, "If it isn't Hyuga and Uchiha… again."

The aging woman sat at her desk and glared a mighty glare at the Ice Twins—both of whom were still sitting back-to-back, glaring at the walls. In one corner, a strange, glasses-clad girl lay in a crumpled heap, moaning about "the things I do to write a good story."

Needless to say, glasses girl was ignored, as she usually is in the stories she — uh, _I _— write. In any case, she quickly ninja-poofed back into her world so the story could continue, so it's all good.

"Would either of you boys mind telling me why, exactly, you felt the need to disturb our campus and let your testosterone levels exceed their normal boundaries?"

Neither of the two boys spoke—more out of irritation than fear. A vein popped out on Tsunade's forehead, and her lips began to twist into a snarl…

_WHAM-SMACK._

"Ow!" Sasuke yelled from where he lay buried under his chair. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Neji, also tangled in his chair, was voicing similar complaints, though his were a little more muffled since one of the legs of his chair had landed against the side of his face. Tsunade stood towering over the two piles of body and chair, her hands still frozen mid-thwack. One honey-colored eyebrow twitched irritably.

"I'm going to ask you again," she growled, "Why the hell were you two brats fighting in the middle of one of the most densely-populated hangouts on our campus?"

"The hell do you care?" Neji muttered. "How's knowing that going to help— urk!"

Tsunade swung Neji up by the front of his shirt and glared balefully at him.

"Knowing what started the fight is going to help me decide whether or not to throw both of you little punks into juvenile hall for battery and assault," she hissed. "And if it's a certain type of irritant that's making the two of you try to kill each other, maybe I can even prevent similar occurrences from taking place here again. Understand, Hyuga?"

The now slightly-terrified (though of course he wasn't going to admit it) Neji nodded mutely, his glare slowly fading into a wince.

"Good." Tsunade let Neji fall back onto the floor, smiling peacefully as she returned to her seat. "Now, tell me what happened."

"Nothing happened," Sasuke growled petulantly. "I just decided I didn't need to listen to him acting like some total badass anymore, and hit him."

"Actually, smart ass, I hit you first," Neji retorted, "And you swung on me because I called you out for being a failure as a boyfriend. You even dumped Amatsu — you've got to admit, she's probably the closest thing to a stable relationship you've ever had, and even she only lasted for… eight months, wasn't it?"

"_She_ ditched _me_," Sasuke growled. His eyes flashed red again. "And my relationships are none of your business."

"Enough!" Tsunade growled. "Since you two can't even keep yourselves under control in front of your principal, why don't I see what your legal guardians think of this mess?"

For the first time that day, both Sasuke and Neji felt true fear. The principal, powerful enough to make Ibiki piss himself that one time in P.E. (Sasuke had laughed for hours when Itachi had told him about that), was still nothing compared to the horrors of having to call home and admit to their legal guardians — Itachi in Sasuke's case and Hiashi in Neji's — that they had been caught fighting at school.

**»»««**

"Oh. My god," Amatsu said when she saw the red Ford Taurus speed into the parking lot. In the front seat were a psychotic blonde… person… and a blue-skinned man with beady little eyes and dark blue hair. His appearance reminded one of a shark.

Sakura turned to look curiously at Amatsu. "You know them?" she asked.

Amatsu nodded, her lips twisting into a half-smirk as she fought not to laugh at the coincidence of the situation.

The Taurus screeched to a stop, and the blue shark man's forehead slammed against his window. He flinched and yelled something at the insane driver, who threw… uh… who threw its head back and laughed maniacally.

"The guys in the front seat would be Deidara and Kisame," Amatsu explained while Ino charged into the back seat.

"They're both men?" Sakura asked. Her voice shot through several octaves before the question ended in a loud squeak.

Unfortunately, Ino had opened the door before her sister had piped up, and the blue guy — who Sakura had mentally dubbed Sharky — burst out laughing while the blonde manly-woman fumed and gripped his steering wheel like he was wishing it was a sword. Amatsu snickered and towed Sakura into the back of the car, making sure to sit in the middle seat so that Sakura was out of the girly-man's reach.

This didn't stop him from trying, of course; he reached back in a fit of adrenalin-induced fury, possibly intending to throw Sakura in front of the car, but Amatsu reached out and poked him in the eye, causing the poor mangirl to howl in pain.

"Ow, hm!" he hissed, clutching his eye and glaring at Amatsu in the rearview mirror. "The hell, hm?"

"Are we planning on eating sometime today?" Amatsu sighed, as though it was normal for Manwoman to spazz out for being called a girl.

Mangirl scowled and turned back to the steering wheel. Sharky turned and grinned at Amatsu, but before he could say whatever he was planning to, Manwoman hit the gas and the Taurus throttled forward, causing Sharky to (almost) fly through the back windshield.

"The hell, Deidara?" Sharky screeched. The car hit a turn too fast and Sharky's head slammed into the window, knocking him out cold.

"Sharky, no!" Sakura wailed dramatically. The car lurched to a stop, throwing the rosette's face into the back of Sharky's seat as Deidara began cackling in that semi-insane, massively blissed-out manner that you usually only heard from stoners.

"MAH MUTHA(CENSORED) FACE!" Sakura yelled as she leaned back in her seat and clutched her face with both hands. Ino snickered, having already decided she liked this "Deidara" person, and Amatsu sighed sympathetically and patted the rosette next to her on the head.

"He's done it to all of us," she murmured, "I think it's Deidara's way of saying he thinks you're cool."

"_Sharky?_" Manwo- I mean, Deidara finally giggle-yelped. The car started moving forward again.

"Shut up, Mangirl," Sakura moaned. Deidara's face flushed bright red, and his potty mouthing could be heard all the way to the Burger King on the other side of the city.

* * *

**Author's Note: First off, the lyrics I used are edited. The original version burned my eyes. The lyrics are from T.I.'s "My Life Your Entertainment" featuring Usher. I don't usually listen to that particular genre of music, but this… song… is not all that bad. The chapter title is more lyrics – swiped from "Guarded" by Disturbed.**

**Second, yes, the girl Neji and Sasuke beat the crap out of is me. LAUGH, DAMN IT. Make my hospital bill a little less painful to look at…**

**Bahaha, Deidara is the manliest manly-woman around. And "Sharky" is a product of introducing my father to **_**Naruto **_**right at the episode where Itachi and Kisame show up in Konoha to kick the crap out of some people before going to get Naruto. And yes, I do believe Itachi wanted to kick the crap outta some people. He's Itachi. He's cool like that.**

**Sorry about the fail chapter—this was one huge writer's block that just. Wouldn't. UNBLOCK. Gah.**

**"Potty mouthing." Hee.  
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	11. Teenagers

**Disclaimer: **Sadly, I do not own Madara anymore. After the publication of "Ravage and Atone," someone snuck into Courtney's house and stole him. We called the FBI, but they refused to look for him because he's a "fictional character." Freaking adults, man…

**Dedication: **To summer vacation, the best and greatest vacation of them all. May my school district never follow through with its plans to create longer in-semester holidays so that summer is reduced to two weeks. Bastards.

**Chapter Eleven: Teenagers Scare the Living Shit Out of Me…**

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_Just a kid, just a fool, always trying to play it cool…_

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"Team Jacob? You bitch!"

"What? It's not _my _fault Edward looks like a freaking disco ball!"

Amatsu sighed and shook her head remorsefully as Ino and Sakura started arguing over which team on the Burger King scratch and win cards to choose. Why couldn't she have any normal, not insane friends? Kisame was already trying to keep Deidara from playing with his lighter.

Manwoman was a bit of a pyromaniac, and liked to flick his lighter on and off whenever he found his irritation was rising to murderous rage. Unfortunately, this tended to scare several of the good citizens of Konoha, and so it was usually better not to enrage the psychotic blonde. If enraging the psychotic blonde was unavoidable, the best thing anyone could come up with was to steal his lighter and not let him get a hold of it.

"Give me my Boomer, hm!" Deidara whined, reaching unsuccessfully for the lighter. Unfortunately, because Kisame stood at least a foot and a half taller than the poor blonde, his "rescue attempts" weren't going very well. Amatsu rolled her eyes and decided she wouldn't be risking any lives if she stopped supervising Sharky and Manwoman. Sakura and Ino, on the other hand…

"Edward is sexy, dammit!" Ino screeched, striking a pose that was halfway between the hooker chest thrust (hands on hips, elbows back, tummy sucked in and boobs thrust forward until foolishly ignorant passersby were knocked unconscious) and the Captain Morgan pose. Somehow, despite the hooker chest thrust part of her stance, she still managed to lean forward threateningly.

"Yeah, because he's sparkly, right, Ino-Pig?" Sakura countered, baring her teeth as though she'd forgotten she wasn't a werewolf.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Somehow Amatsu didn't like the look in either girl's eye…

Before she could move, Sakura grabbed one of the pickles she'd peeled off her burger (she hated pickles) and flung it at Ino with a triumphant, "IT MEANS YOU LIKE SPARKLY WUSS-PIRES WITH CONTROL ISSUES!"

Amatsu dove under the table, grabbing Kisame and Deidara as she did so. A second later a soda — thrown by Ino — soared through the air that had previously been occupied by Amatsu's face (or Kisame and Deidara's stomachs, had Amatsu ducked without grabbing them.)

"We're all going to die, hm," Deidara said, cradling Boomer to his chest. Amatsu glared at Kisame; how the hell did Deidara get the lighter back?

"Since he's probably right, I figured he should die next to his most prized possession," Sharky explained fearfully. The brunette next to him rolled her eyes, groaned, and hid her face in her hands. This was just her bloody luck…

Another soda exploded on the floor in front of Deidara's face, extinguishing the small flame Boomer was emitting and drenching the blonde with sweet sticky goodness.

I meant the soda. Not whatever you perverts were thinking. THE SODA.

Deidara's eye twitched furiously, and his hands started shaking so bad that Boomer clattered to the floor before he grabbed it again and shoved it with lightning speed into his pocket. From where they crouched behind him, Amatsu and a mildly-sticky Kisame traded identical looks of horror. Any idiot knew that a shaking pyromaniac was not a good pyromaniac to be around, and they quickly scooted away from their friend as he charged out from under the table.

"_You got soda on my Boomer!" _he screeched, hurling a Whopper at Sakura's face. The rosette flinched and brought her hand up, but that unfortunately only made the burger blow up and splatter her hand and the side of her face. With her sister distracted, Ino grabbed Amatsu's chicken fries and started chucking them at the Team Jacob fangirl with a maniacal laugh.

"Amatsu?" Kisame asked in a voice hushed with fear.

"Yes, Kisame?"

"…Are we going to die?"

"Possibly. Close your eyes, Sharky, I don't think there'll be much left of us to bury."

**»»««**

Itachi and Sasori were headed towards the Burger King when Itachi's cell phone went off. In full view of a marked police vehicle, Itachi flipped his cell phone open and answered it. Sure, it was illegal, and yes, it was probably a snub to the watching police officers inside the police unit, but this was Itachi Uchiha. Pity the officer foolish enough to tell Itachi what he can and can't do while driving _his _car.

"Hello?" he asked calmly as the light turned green. Sasori looked uninterestedly out the window, though he had the feeling the call as going to be about Sasuke. He had been walking past the high school and his daily wandering when the sounds of a fight had started echoing through the parking lot. Moments later, he had heard Neji yell something about a pink-haired slut and how she might decide to go with someone who hasn't blown every relationship he's had.

Sasori might look like a stoner, but his memory was second only to Itachi's. It wasn't hard to figure out who the "slut" might have been.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sasori watched as Itachi's hand flinched. The older Uchiha's eyes flashed dangerously, though his face remained composed.

"I see. No, it's fine. When would you like me there? …Alright. I'll be there in twelve minutes. Thank you." He flipped his cell phone shut and pushed his car from thirty-five to forty miles per hour. His face was stone cold despite its smoothness.

"Was it by any chance something to do with Sasuke?" Sasori asked mildly.

Itachi nodded once, a sharp jerk of his head that caused a few strands of hair to fall into his face. "He was involved in a fistfight with Neji Hyuga. I've been called to go to a meeting with Principal Tsunade and Hiashi Hyuga. Tsunade promised it would be 'interesting'," he added, and his voice turned suddenly cold.

Many men would have pissed themselves to be in the same car as an Uchiha. Many more men would have shat themselves and started crying pitifully to be sitting so close to an angry Uchiha, much less an angry Itachi Uchiha. Fortunately for both Sasori and Itachi's car, Sasori was not many (more) men. "Then should I order something for you, or are you planning to wait until after you've pounded Sasuke to a bloody pulp before you eat something?"

Itachi's lips twitched in appreciation; Deidara would have been fidgeting with Boomer by now, and Kisame… well, Kisame was not many men, but he was certainly many more men.

"I think I'll pound on Sasuke first," he said calmly as the Burger King came into view. Sasori nodded sagely and said nothing more as he exited the vehicle, closing the door and stepping away from the car in the same movement.

Itachi left the parking lot without even bothering to signal. Sasori watched the car disappear, then turned with an amused smirk and entered the seemingly peaceful Burger King…

**»»««**

There was a knock on the principal's door, and both Neji and Sasuke flinched as they turned fearful eyes on the two men who entered the room. Neji Hyuga and Sasuke Uchiha might have been the kings of the freshman class, but even they had no defense against the wrath of Hiashi Hyuga or Uchiha Itachi.

"I'm glad you could come," Tsunade said evenly. "Although I wish the circumstances weren't what they are. Please, have a seat," she added as Itachi closed the door. She gestured to the two empty seats situated between Sasuke and Neji. Hiashi and Itachi complied wordlessly, both glaring at their respective idiots before turning to look expectantly at the principal.

"Two of my campus supervisors observed your boys locked in a fistfight during morning break. They were able to break up the fight, but Neji started egging Sasuke on halfway to my office and the fight nearly restarted. Fortunately, they were close enough to the office at this point that there were other staff members nearby who were able to help bring the situation back under control again. How these two kept from killing each other before I arrived is beyond me, but I did have to break up another potential fight when I asked them what happened and Neji immediately began to badmouth Sasuke — hence the bruises on their arms and faces."

Sasuke's lip twitched in the beginnings of a snarl, but he very wisely chose to stay silent. Itachi had no qualms about beating the shit out of his brother in front of the principal; he'd done it before, and the principal — a woman named Komura — had sat back and actually cheered him on while he was doing it, which had instilled in Sasuke an extreme hatred of silver-haired old women with pug faces.

"Did they say what it was that caused the fight?" Hiashi growled. Neji seemed to sink into himself a little.

"From what I was able to gather, it appears Neji started trash-talking a girl Sasuke has been having problems with," Tsunade answered. Sasuke was now visibly snarling at the ugly grey and blue-flecked carpeting. "Apparently, it later escalated into trash-talking Sasuke about not being able to hold onto a relationship or more than a few weeks."

"I see." Hiashi's voice had about all the warmth and understanding of a brick to the face.

"They've both been suspended from school for the rest of this week — their schoolwork for the next few days will be on the front desk when you leave. The school is willing to drop charges so long as this doesn't happen again," Tsunade added with a cold glare at Neji and Sasuke.

"Believe me, you won't have any more trouble from Sasuke," Itachi said smoothly. His voice and face gave nothing away about the fury boiling under the surface.

"Neji will not trouble you any further," Hiashi agreed, glaring again at his nephew. Neji became suddenly interested in the ugly carpet.

"Then that's all. I'm sorry to have troubled you, but you'll understand violence is not something we will tolerate on this campus," Tsunade said, standing up and reaching to shake first Hiashi's hand and then Itachi's.

"It was no trouble at all," Itachi promised with a smile devoid of warmth. Hiashi made a noncommittal grunt before steering his wayward teenager outside, Itachi and Sasuke close behind.

Itachi grabbed his brother's shoulder and towed him towards the antechamber of the office building, allowing Hiashi to take Neji out of the building without any chance of another fight occurring. True, both men were probably overestimating the stupidity of the two boys, but it was better to be safe than to have to beat them up in public. Besides, Hiashi was wearing one of his favorite shirts; he didn't want to get any blood on it.

"What, exactly, were you thinking?" Itachi growled. Away from the public view and hidden behind the foyer's tinted windows, the older Uchiha brother finally allowed his anger to show plainly on his face. His dark-colored eyes flickered red, like twin coals smoldering before the flames erupted. His face was the echo, though not the copy of his little brother's snarl; though he bared his teeth in a snarl and allowed his eyebrows to knit together, his face didn't crumble into the gargoyle likeness his brother was capable of.

Sasuke snarled at the tinted windows and didn't answer, out of petulance or loss for words, Itachi wasn't sure. The older Uchiha's nostrils flared, but he quickly reined himself in before he ended up throwing Sasuke out the window he was glaring at. Itachi inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly, refusing to lose his temper.

"I thought you told me you and Sakura were going to be avoiding each other at all costs," he said after a long moment. "You said that you'd gotten into an argument with her, and that she wanted you to stay as far away from you as you could manage because she didn't want to put up with your bullshit anymore. Or was I mistaken?"

"No, you weren't." Sasuke still wasn't looking at his brother.

Itachi stood back and folded his arms across his chest. "Then why was it so easy for Neji to goad you into an on-campus fistfight?"

"The fight wasn't even about her," Sasuke growled. "It was about Neji sticking his damn pretty-boy nose into _my _relationship issues. It had nothing to do with Sakura at all."

"I can see what she means about the bullshit."

Sasuke's eyes finally snapped to his brother's face. Itachi still looked pissed, but he also appeared to be fighting off the faintest hint of a smirk.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sasuke told him flatly.

"Of course you don't." Itachi's voice suddenly became very agreeable, which had Sasuke worried. "Neji, who knows about your… interactions with Sakura, and who enjoys nothing more than to play dirty, would _never _call her anything like, oh, I don't know, a flat-chested hooker, or maybe a pink-haired slut, perhaps?" His lips twisted into a wry smirk as he watched his brother's hands flinch. "And, of course, even if he did, that would certainly not be enough to make you angry. And, heartless bastard that you are, you probably even laughed when he called her those things, didn't you?"

"Shut up," Sasuke growled. Itachi raised an eyebrow at him.

"Fine. If you want to stay ignorant for the rest of your life, that's your problem. Now," he added, growing serious again. "We're going to go grab your homework, and then we are going to go home and you are going to clean both bathrooms and the kitchen until they sparkle. Got it?"

Sasuke nodded sullenly, glaring at the floor as he stood and followed his brother to the front of the building.

**»»««**

Ten minutes previously, at the Burger King…

"What the hell happened?" Sasori asked, his normally stoner-blank face showing surprise as he looked at the chaos surrounding him.

French fries, chicken fries, burgers, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and soda were all splattered against every once-clean surface in sight, and a hip-hopper and his girlfriend were cowering with the restaurant's staff behind the counter. Amatsu and Kisame were hiding under on of the booth tables, and Kisame appeared to be crying in fear, though he had his back turned to the chaos and, therefore, to Sasori. Amatsu was rather calmly looking at the destroyed remnants of the building with one eyebrow raised in unimpressed boredom — which was normal, considering she tended to put up with Deidara the way people who don't like dogs put up with the adorable little German shepherd puppy next door who's just too cute and fluffy _not _to cuddle.

A pink-haired female was tossing chicken fries covered in ketchup at a downed blonde female who was cuddling an empty cup with Edward Cullen's face on it and moaning "All is lost," seemingly not noticing the ketchup and mustard streaked through her hair. Deidara was fidgeting with Boomer, but not in the psychotic, rock-back-and-forth-and-mumble-incoherently-with-dinnerplate-size-eyes way that he usually did in times of severe fury or extreme terror. He was sitting lengthwise on another booth, one foot propped against the edge of the table while he flicked the lighter on and off slowly. His blue eyes were half-lidded as he stared at the resulting flames as if they were only somewhat more interesting than drying paint or growing grass.

"There was an argument, hm." Deidara explained calmly. "The argument resulted in Boomer getting drenched with soda. I ended the argument before it got anymore out of hand, hm." He flicked Boomer again and the flame on it went out again.

"I'm guessing the argument involved a fictional human girl and the romantic choice she's forced to make between a sparkling vampire and an overgrown mutt?" Sasori's eyebrow went up a bit.

"You would be right, hm." Boomer flicked open with another tiny flame. "Although Bella didn't really make an appearance this time, hm — it was more sparkly wuss-pire versus overgrown mutt, hm. The sparkly wuss-pire appears to have lost, hm." The little flicker went out with another click. Deidara still appeared for all intents and purposes to be incredibly bored.

Sasori gave up trying to get details from the pyromaniacal teenager and turned to Amatsu. "I thought you were the babysitting type," he said with a smirk. "Good thing you aren't getting paid to look after these guys."

"You try controlling a pyromaniac, a psychotic blonde girl, and an infuriated pink-haired female with boyfriend issues," Amatsu told him as she crawled out from under the table. "_Then _you can tell me I'm doing it wrong. Right, Kisame?"

"I want my Samehada," Sharky whimpered, scootching around so he was looking at the chaos from under the table. Tear stains darkened the skin on both sides of his face from light blue to a dark sapphire color.

"Usually, you're the first one to start a fight," Sasori observed mildly.

"Two teenage girls and a pyromaniac were fighting inside a small, enclosed space with lots of glass," Kisame explained, as though Sasori hadn't already figured that much out for himself. "I'm not getting in the middle of that with full body armor and two Tazers." Amatsu nodded sagely, seconding the poor shark man's fear of the Armageddon that had just passed.

Sasori sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Of all of the social crowds he could have mixed into, he had not expected the "weird" group to be the one he would blend in with the easiest. He had always thought he would fit in with the chess club, or perhaps the artists, but no. No, he had to make friends with Itachi Uchiha, the dark horse of Fire Shadow High School, because Itachi was deep and thoughtful and philosophical. And then Sasori had met Kisame and Deidara — and later, Sasuke and his then-girlfriend Amatsu. While Sasori couldn't complain too much about Sasuke and rather enjoyed Amatsu's company, Deidara was an insane freak who would likely kill himself in the name of his "art is fleeting" belief, and Kisame… well, Kisame couldn't get a date with a blind woman who suffered from severe mental retardation and had only the slightest traces of feeling in her hands and fingers.

"We're leaving," Sasori said simply. "Everyone get in Deidara's car while I get something to eat." His… acquaintances of varying degrees of friendliness… groaned collectively and marched outside to the relieved cheers and clapping of the other people in the burger joint. For his heroic effort, Sasori was given free food and drink for the rest of the school season, which he accepted gladly. Burger King kicked ass.

**»»««**

"My hair feels sticky," Ino said, seeming to snap out of her "all is lost" state of depression. She ran her fingers through her hair experimentally, stopping cold when she hit something cold, wet, and gooey.

"Oh, shit," Amatsu hissed, diving into the front of the car and curling up on the driver's side floor. Kisame squished himself under the dashboard on the passenger's side as best as he could, and Deidara suddenly became very still.

"What… the hell… is _this?_" Ino growled, removing her fingers and looking at the yellow and red goop that clung to them.

"Uhm… Burger King condiments?" Sakura whimpered with a tiny smile. She shrank against the door she sat next to and raised her arms defensively.

"_YOU GOT CONDIMENTS IN MY HAIR!" _Ino screeched, and in the next moment a brawl had erupted in the backseat of the red Taurus.

Sasori walked out of the Burger King to find the red car shaking violently as a catfight began to destroy the backseat. Deidara had his eyes closed and seemed to be reciting some sort of mantra to himself as he allowed the current flame Boomer was emitting to burn dangerously close to his face and hair. Sasori couldn't see Amatsu, and only _thought _he could make out Kisame's spiked blue hair sticking up over the dash board. Apparently, they were hiding on the floor of the front seat.

Sasori rolled his eyes before setting his food down on the pavement and stalking over to the back left door of the car. He wrenched the door open, reached in, and yanked a random psychotic female out by the back of her shirt, tossing her back to roll across the pavement behind him as he reached in and whacked the other psychotic female across the crown of her head.

"Can you _please _stop terrorizing the public?" he asked flatly. "And stop trying to make Deidara angry, while you're at it. He looks like he's going to blow—"

"_Art is a bang, hm. Art is a bang, hm. Art is a bang, hm…_"

"—The car up," Sasori finished with an irritated sigh. "Deidara, put Boomer away before I take it away."

The blonde glared back at him coldly as he clicked Boomer shut and stuffed it back into his right pants pocket. Sasori returned the glare coolly, and after a moment Deidara turned back to the steering wheel.

"Is it safe to come out again?" Amatsu asked, peeking out over Deidara's knees.

Sasori glanced at the backseat to find both psychotic females had reloaded themselves and were happily discussing hair care products, having apparently forgotten their death match exactly twenty seconds earlier.

"It appears the storm has passed," Sasori reported. Amatsu immediately scrambled back into the backseat, sitting warily between Ino and Sakura. Kisame very cautiously slid back into his own seat while Sasori fetched his burger and fries and loaded himself into the floor of the backseat. As Deidara drove out of the parking lot, all appeared to be peaceful again.

…Until Ino caught Sakura ogling a picture of long-haired Jacob that had been folded four times and stuffed in one of her pockets…

* * *

**Author' Note: The lyrics I used are from "Loaded and Alone" by Hinder. Yay, Hinder! Oh, and the chapter title is part of the refrain/chorus from "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance. Yay MCR!**

**Hee, I liked writing this chapter. It would appear that Deidara + Ino + Sakura + Twilight Paraphernalia = Shit Hitting the Fan. I feel sorry for the other poor bastrds at the Burger King…**

**Hm, it seems Itachi isn't quite as romantically retarded as Sasuke is. He's certainly noticed the (albeit violent) sparks shooting off from those two.**

**Next time: we will discover Neji's punishment, and… well, and other stuff. XD**

**Ja-ne!**


	12. Forget It

**Disclaimer: **After searching the field near the local playhouse, we discovered Madara hiding in a tree while a bunch of rabid fangirls scoured the area for him. Through the cunning use of an unconscious and half-naked Sasuke tied to a tree, we managed to distract the fangirls — and the two fanboys, oddly enough — long enough to sneak Madara back to my house. Courtney is currently in the process of building an epic security system of epicness, so for now Madara's bunking with me. S'alright, though; Courtney gets Madara for as much time during the fall as I get to have him now.

**Dedication: **To being able to do something so incredibly epic that everyone who said you couldn't is forced to eat their own petty, sniveling, insignificant words while you laugh at them from behind bulletproof glass. Do I appear to have a vengeful streak to all you faithful readers of mine?

**Chapter Twelve: Forget It

* * *

**

_I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. I focused on the pain — the only thing that's real…

* * *

_

The next day, the school was still buzzing quietly with talk of the epic battle between Sasuke and Neji. Naruto was very loudly proclaiming to any poor fool who stopped to listen that Sasuke would have totally wiped the cement with Neji's bloody carcass had Kakashi and Iruka not intervened when they did. Kiba was very loudly telling Naruto (and anyone foolish enough to listen) that Neji was a total badass and should have been allowed to murder Sasuke — or at least come close to it — before the fight was broken up. Bets were being placed between Neji fangirls and Sasuke fangirls concerning where the next fight would be, what it would be about, and who would win.

Sakura and Amatsu watched the goings-on with something less than enthusiasm; both had come to the opinion that the two pretty boys were being ridiculous and stirring up unnecessary trouble among their fellow students, and both had their own ways of not talking about either Neji or Sasuke when the subject came up. Amatsu's was much more effective, since she was just as skilled in the art of the cold-hearted stare of death as Sasuke was, but Sakura's method was more clever. Who knew it could be so easy to talk her way out of a popular subject?

Ino, on the other hand, was willingly placing bets on Sasuke totally destroying Neji in a rematch fight, and had armed herself with water balloons, silly string, and a tiny can of mace should any foolish Neji fangirl decide to disagree with her opinion.

Several students had already left to change clothes or were lined up outside the nurse's office with swollen, bloodshot eyes.

"You know," Amatsu commented during morning break, "your sister seems very eager to get Sasuke's attention. Nothing like you at all," she added with a glance at Sakura. The two girls were sitting on one of the cement-and-iron benches near the science and English buildings, one of the quieter areas of the school campus.

"I honestly don't want anything to do with Sasuke at all," Sakura murmured. "If I never spoke to him again, it would be too soon."

_What a liar. _She didn't say it, but Amatsu couldn't keep the thought from entering her mind. _Give me a break, Pinky. You two are falling so hard for each other that a blind man with a mental handicap could see it. The only reason you two don't is because you're both too busy wallowing in denial._

"Sasuke really isn't all that bad," Amatsu finally said. "He just… isn't used to being around people who can put up with him. Mostly, kids stay away from him—they're afraid of his temper, or they hate him because he's rich and acts like a total jackass. But he has a good side, too. He just doesn't know how to show it; he's kind of grown up thinking he should keep people at arm's length, you know?"

"Because of his parents dying?" Sakura asked. "But that was only a few years ago…"

"His parents raised him to be like that. Or," Amatsu corrected herself, "at least, Fugaku did." Her blue eyes flashed, making Sakura wonder if perhaps she knew more about Sasuke's family than she was going to tell her.

"But still, though," Sakura grumbled. "Doesn't he even want to try changing? Doesn't he wonder if it'd be easier to be nice once in a while?"

"People don't often like to change themselves, even when they know it's the right thing to do," Amatsu mused. "And I think Sasuke is still trying to earn his father's respect by behaving the way he does, even though he has no idea if perhaps death has changed the way Fugaku looks at things. Who knows? Maybe Fugaku made it through the Pearly Gates. Maybe he can see how wrong he was to push his sons to be less than human."

"You believe there's an afterlife?" Her rosette companion asked. Sakura herself wasn't exactly an incredibly pious person, but it had seemed to her as though Amatsu might be even less religious, perhaps to the point that not even an afterlife existed.

"Of course I do," Amatsu snapped. She caught herself and sighed wearily. "I'm sorry. It's just that I don't like to talk religion unless someone else brings it up. It's annoying, but that usually makes people assume I'm an atheist. I suppose I'm just more of the mind that whatever greater being is watching over us would rather see us suck it up and push through our own challenges. At least, that's what I would want a god to be: loving, but loving enough to realize we will whine when we should work."

The girls sat in silence for a while, until the bell rang, signaling the end of the morning break period. Amatsu sighed again and grabbed her backpack, hoisting it onto her shoulders before glancing back at Sakura again. After a second, the rosette rose and followed Amatsu to their English class.

"But that's kind of my point," Amatsu continued after a moment. "I don't think you should judge Sasuke on face value. He… God, I'm about to sound so incredibly corny and lovesick…" She barked out a cold laugh at herself.

"What?" Sakura asked curiously.

Amatsu turned to look at her, her blue eyes more pained and beseeching than Sakura had ever seen them. They were close to the classroom now, and students were filing by on both sides, but the brunette didn't seem to notice.

"Whatever he does… whatever that boneheaded, big mouthed moron has said or done, please… just take my word on this. He deserves the chance to show you who he really is." Her voice was gruff with the effort of hiding the emotions that glimmered in her eyes.

Sakura grimaced, but she had to admit that Amatsu had a point. Would the rosette feel the same if someone she had loved — someone she still loved, despite having moved on — was being unfairly judged by Amatsu? She found herself answering that question with a resounding _yes_.

"Alright," she finally sighed. "I'll… I guess I'll give him a chance. But we still won't talk to each other, or play on the same team in P.E. Or eat within five feet of each other."

"Well, it's a start," Amatsu said dryly. A smirk appeared on her face, and Sakura thought it looked a little more relieved than Amatsu had intended. Without waiting for an answer, the brunette turned and walked quietly into class, Sakura towing along behind her as the second bell rang.

**»»««**

"Rock Lee!" Gai shouted, pointing at a very convincing miniature double of himself who sat in the front of the class. The student straightened up eagerly, like a puppy who just realized that really nice old person that gives it treats all the time is going to adopt it.

"I'm here, Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted happily.

"Excellent!" Gai shouted. "What a youthful way to make your presence known!"

"Thank you, Gai-sensei!" And with that, Lee sat down and paid strict attention to the rest of the roll call.

"Man, he's so loud." Tenten, sitting two rows over and a person behind her psychotic classmate, cradled her face in her hands and stifled a groan. "Why couldn't I get stuck with a _normal _class? For that matter," she added to herself, "Where the hell is Neji? I didn't think he'd gotten that bruised up in the fight…"

Unfortunately for the brunette, Gai heard her grumblings — as well as the grumblings of her classmates — and very _youthfully _shouted, "Ah, so you are all concerned about your classmate! How _youthful!_ Do not fear, my loyal students, for your comrade is healthy as ever. He's just been taken out of school for a while so he can calm down, as has his _youthful _opponent, Sasuke!"

"If I hear _youthful _one more time, I'm going to de-ball the teacher with my foot," Tenten grumbled as Gai launched into the class by ordering them to run ten laps around the tri. Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem; any students lazy enough to get out of the laps could have hidden out of sight somewhere on the opposite side of the tri and waited until someone passed them for the ninth time before they started running. With Asuma and Kurenai, this usually worked relatively well.

Not so with Gai-sensei. The man had eyes _everywhere, _and the students knew it. With a collective groan and an even more collective glare at Rock Lee's blissfully smiling face, the class dragged themselves outside to do their morning laps.

**»»««**

Poor Neji wasn't just stuck at home. No, poor Neji was stuck at home… babysitting his younger cousin Hanabi, who had a bad case of the flu. As nice and quiet as the little twerp was around Hiashi and Hinata, when Neji was the only one near her, the young Hyuga girl turned into the devil himself, and Hiashi was apparently aware of that, if the evil smile on his face when he'd left that morning had been any indicator.

Sometimes Neji truly hated his uncle.

"Neji! I ran out of ginger ale! Go get me another six pack!"

"How that little brat fits six travel-size bottles of _anything _in that scrawny little midsection…" Neji grumbled incoherently as he grabbed a third six-pack of mini ginger ale bottles and drudged to Hanabi's bedroom.

Just as he reached the door, he heard his cousin add, "Oh, darn, I just ran out of crackers, too! Can you grab another bag?"

Neji ground his teeth and convinced himself very firmly that swearing at the top of his lungs was not going to solve anything before very carefully placing the bottles of ginger ale next to the bedroom door and marching back to the kitchen to grab the stupid crackers.

**»»««**

Poor Sasuke wasn't just stuck at home, either. Nope, he was stuck at home going through the entire week's worth of homework in one day, with Deidara and Kisame around to "help" while Itachi and Sasori went out to do whatever they did to entertain themselves away from the pyromaniac and the fish man, both of whom only claimed to have apartments of their own, even though they, like Sasori, chose to mooch and occupy three of the several empty bedrooms in the Uchiha family's house. However, unlike Sasori, they didn't work and help pay the electricity and water bills.

"Hey, Sasuke, hm! Catch!"

Something bounced off the back of Sasuke's head, knocking the teen's forehead onto his homework as the projectile landed and rolled across the floor.

"Oops, he didn't catch it, hm," Deidara cackled as he charged over to where the football he'd just thrown was lying. He reached out and mussed up Sasuke's hair as he passed, "accidentally" slamming the poor kid's head into the desk again.

"Hey, don't hit him too hard," Kisame chuckled, "He still has three days of homework to finish before Itachi gets back." Despite his words, the friendly pat he gave to Sasuke's left shoulder ended up knocking the younger Uchiha off his seat and onto the floor.

"I hate you both. You do realize that, right?"

"Yep, we figured as much, hm," Deidara said, cheerfully unfazed by the death glare he was receiving from the irritated heap of person on the floor.

**»»««**

Sakura's math class seemed overcharged with gossiping and suspicious stares when the rosette walked into the classroom. All throughout the period, Sakura found herself at the center of everyone but the teacher's attention, and more than a few of the girls in her class were glaring at her outright. So it wasn't too absurd that Sakura was a little wary of walking outside the classroom when the lunch bell rang.

"Why do they think it's _my _fault?" she grumbled while she stuffed her book into her backpack. "_I _didn't tell those two morons to fight."

"But Neji was using you to get Sasuke riled up."

Sakura yelped and spun around, startled by the muted voice that had answered her. Gaara, the red-haired boy whose foot Sakura had dropped her book on the day before, stood looking down at her without much emotion in his icy-colored eyes.

"Neji called you a pink-haired whore and told Sasuke you were probably going to end up with someone who didn't have so much trouble holding onto a relationship as Sasuke does," he continued, sounding little less than bored by the entire thing. "For some reason, it infuriated Sasuke to no end. He was the one who threw the first punch."

"How do you know that?" Sakura asked. "I mean, how do _I _know you aren't just telling me second-hand information?"

"I was there to see it from the start," Gaara told her. Was she imagining the cold edge his voice took on? "I heard and saw everything."

"Oh," Sakura mumbled. "Sorry."

The redhead shrugged and walked towards the door, but then he stopped and turned back to face her again.

"Not that I care," he said blankly, "but some of the girls were planning to ambush you and 'make you sorry' for getting Sasuke in trouble for the fight. If I were you, I wouldn't walk towards the agricultural building on your way to lunch. And be sure to look around any corners you have to walk by, while you're at it." With that he opened the door and left.

_Great, _Sakura grumbled as she stuffed her book into her backpack. _Just brilliant. Now every girl in the entire freaking school hates my guts, and all because Sasuke had to choose the middle of the lunch break to decide to be chivalrous. Ass._

The rosette took Gaara's advice and skirted around the opposite end of the agriculture classrooms on her way to the front parking lot. She forgot to look around one of the corners… and it just so happened that particular corner was the one she should have watched like a hawk.

She didn't even see the punch that came at her face, but she sure felt it when the knuckles cracked painfully against her jaw. She staggered and only barely managed to keep her balance as she reeled from the blow. Unfortunately, she couldn't recover fast enough to avoid the knee she took to her stomach, or the blow to her jaw that left her sprawled out on the pavement. She was at least able to roll unsteadily to her feet before she could get kicked by her assailants.

"Hey, _bitch_," Karin's nasally voice sneered. "Thought you could get away with making Sasuke get suspended for fighting over you with Neji, didn't ya? _Dumbass._"

"I didn't tell the bonehead to fight anyone," Sakura growled. She could taste blood, and by the way her tongue was stinging, it wasn't hard to guess where the blood was coming from. "Sasuke got himself in trouble, you stupid cow. Him and Neji both."

"Oh yeah?" the brown-eyed girl behind Karin hissed. "Then how come Sasuke got so mad when Neji called you a pink-haired slut?"

"Not that he was off by much," Karin put in.

"How the hell would I know?" Sakura demanded. "I can't read minds — I don't know what he was thinking, I wasn't even _there_!" She stopped and spat a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. Definitely her tongue; she'd probably bit into it the second time she got socked.

The sound of rapid footfall was the rosette's only warning before she took yet _another _blow to the face, and then suddenly she was getting pounded on by all three of her attackers. One grabbed her hair and yanked on it while the other two beat and kicked her across the torso and legs. One of the girls even dragged a set of manicured nails down the side of Sakura's face, leaving angry red welts that made the rosette's eyes water. She tried to swing, but didn't have the freedom of movement to make any of her blows accurate or hard enough to do anything more than anger the other three girls even more.

Just as Sakura was about to try Plan B — screaming for help in the hopes that someone would hear her — the grip on her hair vanished with the sound of a yelp. Free to straighten up, Sakura whirled around and cracked the brown-eyed girl's jaw with her elbow before whirling back around to strike the other girl across the nose. Both girls screeched and stumbled away from her, holding their faces and yelling garbled obscenities at her.

Sakura walked back from the two and risked glancing around for Karin. She found her on the ground, clutching her face and screaming at the top of her lungs. Amatsu stood glaring down at her, both fists still clenched and stained in the other girl's blood. When Karin rolled onto her side, Sakura could see blood gushing from between her fingers and down her chin; Amatsu had broken her nose, and had probably knocked some teeth lose, too.

"You _bitch!_" Karin screeched. The words sounded bubbly, as though she had a lot of blood in her mouth. "You cheap, ugly _whore! _I'll _kill _you! I'll — "

"You'll shut up if you know what's good for you," Amatsu snapped. Sakura had never seen the brunette look so furious before, and it scared her to see it now. But at least it was enough to make Karin shut the hell up.

"And _you,_" Amatsu snarled, turning to glare at Karin's two lackeys. Both girls immediately stopped swearing. "_If you ever _touch Pinky again, you'll be _lucky _if she gets to you before _I _do. Got it?" Her eyes were nothing but dark blue slits in her pale face.

Both girls nodded.

"Hey, what's going on here?" A voice demanded angrily. All five students turned to see Asuma and Ibiki stalking towards them with faces that were crumpled in irritation. Sakura flinched and shrank into herself when she saw Ibiki's scarred face. The guy was scary as _hell._

"These idiots jumped my friend," Amatsu explained coldly, pointing to indicate the idiots and then the friend. "If I hadn't come along when I did, she'd be in the hospital by now."

"Where she belongs, dammit," Karin hissed, spitting a mouthful of blood through her teeth. Amatsu's foot twitched towards Karin, but the brunette stayed quiet.

Ibiki and Asuma studied each girl in turn, then glanced at each other as if to say, "What the hell do we do now?"

Then Ibiki turned to the group and growled, "Come on. You can explain your behavior to Principal Tsunade. And don't think of trying to run off or start fighting on the way — we won't put up with any reruns of yesterday's brawl."

He turned and walked away; under Asuma's glare, the girls filed after him sullenly, all but Amatsu holding their faces or sides in pain.

"Thanks, Amatsu," Sakura whispered. "I'm sorry you got in trouble for it; I should have been more careful…"

"Shut it," Amatsu growled, but her tone was friendlier. "I might not consider you an actual friend yet, but you're someone I can relate to, and that's reason enough to get myself suspended if you need help in a fight."

One of Karin's group made a gagging noise, to which Amatsu promptly responded by kicking that girl in the back of the knee and knocking her to the ground. Ibiki and Asuma very subtly pretended not to notice.

**»»««**

All five of the girls involved in the fight had been suspended until Tuesday the following week, and had received homework packs that weighed at least a ton.

"It wasn't even my fault," Sakura groaned as she crammed the last of her things into her backpack. "I was the one who got jumped, and you were only trying to help me — well, you _were _helping me, actually. Shouldn't we at least get a shorter suspension than those… those _hookers_?"

"I think you just insulted the good name of hookers everywhere," Amatsu droned. Her blue eyes glittered with malicious humor.

Sakura grinned and walked outside, steeling herself for the prospect of walking home in the searing midday heat.

"I can call for a ride, if you want," Amatsu suggested behind her. Sakura turned to see the brunette already dialing a number into her cell phone.

"Er, thanks," the rosette said. "That'd be great."

"Hey, Deidara," Amatsu said after the other line had only had time to ring once. "Can you swing by and pick me and Sakura up from the high school? …No, not for lunch, idiot, the fifth-period bell just rang… _Yes, _we did get suspended… No we did not blow any of the bathrooms up or graffiti on any of the walls in the cafeteria. That's what _you _did before you dropped out…"

There was a long pause, and then Amatsu seemed to grind her teeth together before very calmly growling into the phone, "No, I'm not going to _spill _anything until you come and pick us up, _moron._" She paused again, then growled, "_Thank _you," and clicked her cell shut, muttering something about imbeciles as she stuffed the poor thing back into her bookbag.

"…So he's coming to get us, then?" Sakura asked after a moment.

"Yes." Amatsu eyed her companion for a minute before asking, "That's okay, isn't it? You don't mind?"

"No, it's fine," Sakura assured her. "It's just… Well, I understand that Deidara's your friend and all, but why wouldn't you call your parents or a sibling instead?"

Amatsu's face darkened, and she looked away when she answered, "I live with my father, and I don't have any other family. My father's such an idiot that I could come home with a set of newborns in my arms and the first thing he would say to me would be, 'Amatsu, you missed your curfew. I hope you weren't out doing drugs or anything'." She looked back at her pink-haired companion and added, "We don't like to speak to each other very often."

"Oh," Sakura gasped. She reached out and touched Amatsu's arm and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up something like that. I was just — "

"It's fine, Pinky," Amatsu sighed. "Curiosity isn't anything to be ashamed of."

The girls were silent after that, neither one sure what to say until the sound of tires squealing pitifully against the asphalt alerted them to their pyromaniacal manly-woman's approach.

"Deidara," they both sighed in unison.

**»»««**

"You're unbelievable," Ino groaned as she served Sakura yet _another _iced chai. It was after school, and the girls were at their Starbucks while Ino worked her shift for that day.

"You've already said that, Pig," Sakura grumbled.

After having Sakura and Amatsu's suspension explained to him, cackling gleefully at the girls, and getting his face pounded repeatedly against the steering wheel of his Taurus, Deidara had driven the now thoroughly irritated females to Sakura's house after Amatsu had asked to stay the night there. Ino had arrived home to find the girls watching 1,000 Ways to Die with Mr. Fluffers curled between them, purring as he nibbled contentedly on a piece of leftover tuna sandwich (courtesy of Amatsu).

Though there had initially been a heated pillow fight over whether or not Amatsu really _would _be allowed to stay at the Yamanaka/Haruno residence, eventually Ino had conceded that it _might _be fun to have the brunette over for an impromptu sleepover.

Provided she didn't steal Mr. Fluffers.

With the matter settled, the trio had left Mr. Fluffers to continue watching TV while they headed to the Starbucks so that Ino could start her shift for that day. Now Amatsu and Sakura sat at the closest table to the counter, trying to ignore Ino while she made fun of them for getting suspended.

"Seriously, you guys," Ino laughed, coming to sit with the two, "What, are you taking lessons from Sasuke and Neji? How come I wasn't invited to the fight?"

"Your sister was _jumped_," Amatsu explained with all the patience she possessed. "As in, she didn't _know _there was going to be a fight. Not that I think she would have been wise to tell you if she _had _known; aren't you the one that set the J building on fire?"

Ino stuck her tongue out at Amatsu and went back behind the counter to flirt with a customer while at the same time trying to seduce him into adding an extra five dollars to the tip jar that sat next to the cash register. Unfortunately, she was a little _too _convincing, and had to mace the guy when he tried to reach over the counter for a quick feel. The poor moron dragged himself out of the building yelling derogatory phrases that caused his blonde assailant to chase after him with a scalding hot cup of hot cocoa in her hand.

Amatsu watched the resulting almost-murder with barely-interested blue eyes before turning to Sakura and whispering, "Your sister seems to be missing a few screws."

The rosette only hid her face in her arms and groaned. This was going to be a _long _sleepover…

* * *

**Author's Note: Yay, it's finally done! (A note to my fellow fanfiction writers: DO NOT read **_**My Immortal **_**while working on a story. It will make you scream every time your spell/grammar check goes off. Not to mention you'll start to feel as though you're rambling on and on about pointless, poorly-written absurdities that don't even make any sense…)**

**The lyrics are from **_**Hurt**_** (apparently it was originally a Nine Inch Nails song, but I prefer the Johnny Cash version better.) The chapter title is the title of Breaking Benjamin's **_**Forget It.**_** Creative, isn't it? XD**

**Poor Neji and Sasuke. If I wasn't too busy cackling at their misfortune, I might actually feel sorry for them. But it's more likely I wouldn't.**

**I'm not going to give anything huge away, but I will tell you to remember what Amatsu said and did when Sakura asked about her family. It could prove to be very important later on in the story…**

**Next Chapter: The sleepover should take up the majority of the chapter, and things start getting a little fishy-smelling (and Mr. Fluffers' tuna breath is only one of the contributing factors)…**


	13. Wish I May

**Disclaimer: **Since Madara's being a total ass right now, we left him tied up in the middle of the lion's den at the local zoo… and then threw bloody chunks of steak at him while the lions watched.

Bahaha… Oh, don't look at me like that; he's freakin' immortal! He'll live to be a bastard another day.

**Surprise:** I LIIIIIIIIIIIED! (Variation on I LIIIIIIIIIVE!) -evil laughter- But 'tis a nice surprise, no?

**NOTE: **I completely and totally forgot who the character was I said I would implement into my story. Please remind me? -ducks behind couch-

**Dedication: **To being back! I love you guys!

**Chapter Thirteen: Wish I May**

* * *

_Now you turn the tide on me 'cause you're so unkind. I will always be here — for the rest of my life…_

* * *

"Okay," Ino cheered as the trio walked into the Yamanaka/Haruno house for the second time that day. "Sleepover time! What do you guys want to do? Karaoke? Watch TV? Play a board game? Oh! I know! We can play dress-up with Mr. Fluffers!" And with that, Ino immediately dashed off to scour the house for the aforementioned Mr. Fluffers, leaving Amatsu and Sakura to figure out the tiny details like where Amatsu would sleep and what they should have for dinner and such. As they talked, Sakura noticed Amatsu glance at the open windows more than once, almost as though the brunette were anxious that someone might see her in the house.

Well, Sakura thought to herself, it _was _a bit dark out to have the windows open. Maybe Amatsu was worried about peeping toms…

"If you want, I can close the curtains," Sakura suggested after the fifth time her almost-a-friend looked at one of the windows. "I mean, we don't usually have peeping toms around here, but if you're uncomfortable…" As she spoke she moved around the house, closing curtains and raising her voice so that she could still be heard in the other downstairs rooms. "Do you live in a worse-off neighborhood? Not to be rude or anything, but if you do, I can totally understand—"

"It's fine," Amatsu called. "And yeah, my block isn't real great. There are some… well, there are shifty characters on my street. Let's leave it at that."

Sakura walked back into the living room, dusting her hands off with a concerned expression as she came to sit next to Amatsu on the couch. She was getting more and more worried about the stoic girl with every bit of information she learned about her.

"Are you sure you're okay where you live?" the rosette asked quietly. "I mean, you could always bunk here, right? You could set up in the guest room and your dad probably wouldn't even notice—and you wouldn't have to worry about shady characters around here…"

She trailed off as Amatsu shook her head ruefully.

"I really wish I could, Sakura," she sighed. "But it's… it's a bit more complicated than that. If I could just up and leave my idiot father behind I would in a heartbeat… but I can't. I don't know if I will ever be able to do that."

"You must be really devoted to your dad," Sakura guessed. Amatsu hesitated, then grimaced and nodded reluctantly.

Things might have gotten very awkward if Ino had not chosen that precise moment to come screaming down the stairs, trip over her own feet, and tumble down to the first-floor landing. An instant later, a bow-clad Mr. Fluffers came screeching after her, claws out and teeth bared as he dive-bombed the poor blonde from the third step. Sakura and Amatsu very wisely chose not to get in the middle of the resulting cat-versus-girl brawl that swirled around the living room like an old cartoony fight cloud.

"What'd you do?" Sakura asked when the fight swerved towards the couch. Amatsu pulled her legs up and dove over the back of the couch — there was no way in _hell _she was getting clawed up by an angry cat and a life-defending blond chick. (CENSORED) no.

"I just tried to make him smell pretty! _OW!_" Ino shrieked as one of Mr. Fluffers' claws caught her bottom lip. In a fit of feminine (and pain-induced) rage, she picked the cat up and threw him at Sakura's face. Sakura and Mr. Fluffers' screams ended in simultaneous yowls as Mr. Fluffers landed claws-first on Sakura's chest and Sakura accidentally dug her nail into his sides in her attempt to make him ricochet off her hands and onto the floor.

"Ino…" Sakura growled, gently placing Mr. Fluffers on the ground next to her feet. The blonde in question yelped and scrambled to her feet before backing slowly away from the advancing duo. "I… am going… to _kill_ you… And feed you… to Mr. Fluffers…"

From behind the couch, Amatsu only distantly heard the sounds of a tag-team curb-stomp battle as she took her phone out of her back pocket. It was on silent, and vibrated gently in her hand to tell her she'd received a new text message. She quickly opened the message before the alarm on it could start to beep.

The brunette felt a slight chill roll down her spine when she saw the number — which was marked as "Shiro Sagisu" to avoid suspicion should anyone look through her contacts — and the text the contact had sent:

_You're late. Where are you?_

She bit her lip, paying close attention to the sounds of the continued fight as she quickly ran through her options. Option one: she could answer the text, lie and say she got caught up with some other important thing, and leave without any better explanation than "my dad needs something, I'm sorry," then rush over to the contact's place and see what he wanted. Option two: she could answer the text, tell the truth, and possibly be ordered to do something she wouldn't want to go through with, as well as reveal the location of her friend's house — something she'd kept secret thus far, mostly because it currently was of no interest to "Shiro".

Option three: she could ignore the text entirely and tell "Shiro" she'd had to turn her phone off and therefore hadn't received the message until the following morning (which he likely wouldn't buy, but it was worth a shot).

Amatsu thought for another moment, then took a deep breath, deleted the message, and very deliberately turned the cellphone off. This done, she shoved it back into her pocket and went to go break up the fight.

**»»««**

In a far less pleasant part of Konoha, a darkly-clothed figure sat on the bank of the Bisgon Creek, watching the tiny trickle of water that struggled across the smooth rocks in the creek bed. A small smirk played across his lips, and black eyes danced with blacker humor. He had sent that text over half an hour ago; if Amatsu was going to answer it, she would have done so by now. This of course meant only one thing, and it was a rather amusing possibility to the man.

"So she's going to ignore me and play normal," he chuckled. "Alright, I'll let her have her little moment. Wouldn't want her to think I was ungracious, now would I?" He chuckled again and settled himself more comfortably on the bank; his little errand could wait for Amatsu to come to her senses—and she _would _come to her senses when he got a hold of her…

**»»««**

"You guys are both total nutcases," Amatsu grumbled. She sat on the couch, arms crossed and Mr. Fluffers curled up contentedly on her lap while she glared in exasperation at the two downed females on the floor. Sakura (who had been tossed against the wall after she'd tried to strangle Ino with the blonde's own hair) was only just now coming to her senses, and still seemed a bit dazed from the brawl. Ino, who had passed out thanks to being choked by her own hair, was now sitting against the side of the couch opposite her sister, shivering and praying Sakura wouldn't come after her a second time.

"Welcome to our lives," Sakura mumbled. She sat up and winced as her head throbbed angrily; Amatsu had thrown her _hard_, and the rosette's last weigh-in held her weight to be a hundred and thirteen pounds! "Sorry, Amatsu; I should have warned you the craziness gets worse at home."

"Nah," Amatsu sighed, waving a hand at the rosette, "It's fine. I should have guessed, really; besides, you guys are kind of like Deidara and Kisame — only you didn't break anything while you were trying to kill each other." _Except my eardrums. Ouch. _"Anyway, we should really go ahead and figure out what to eat soon — it's already past eight!"

"Pizza!" Ino cheered, popping up from behind the couch at the exact moment that Sakura suggested, "Sushi!" The two girls froze and glared at each other until, predictably, lightning bolts started shooting from their eyes; the bolts clashed just inches from Amatsu's nose, making the brunette flinch back with a yelp.

_This is why I hate living here, _Mr. Fluffers growled. Amatsu blinked down and him, then looked back at the angry girls and winced as the lightning bolts burst into flames. Don't ask her how; they just… _did_.

"Uh, you know what?" Amatsu asked feebly, "I'll just get Deidara over here, and we'll go get pizza for Ino, sushi for Sakura, and whatever catches my eye for, well… me. Sound good?"

The flaming lightning bolts randomly blew up, sending both Amatsu and Mr. Fluffers flying into the kitchen.

"Great," Amatsu grumbled. "I'll take that as a yes. You okay, Fluffers?"

The ratty ball of fur peaked up at her from under his tangled tail and legs and let out one long, low growl that she assumed was a rather grudging "yes". Sighing, Amatsu grabbed her cellphone and dialed Deidara's number.

**»»««**

At the Uchiha residence, things weren't much more peaceful.

Itachi and Sasori were huddled in the upstairs game room, playing a rather quiet game of chess. It was also possibly one of the most intense games of chess ever witnessed; as both men were considered geniuses, their game had so far seen two moves each… in about half an hour's time. The tension in the air was quite literally crushing, as was evidenced by the way the pool table was beginning to chip for no physical reason.

Across the hall, Sasuke was _still _working on his homework; fortunately, he was halfway through the last day's workload, and with Deidara and Kisame safely downstairs, there was no one around to disturb him in his studies. The younger Uchiha stifled a yawn as he finished his math homework and moved on to English.

Downstairs, Kisame and Deidara were crowded together on a couch that Kisame made a little too small for both men, arguing silently over which channel to watch. Kisame wanted to watch the _Deadliest Warrior _marathon on Spike; Deidara was more interested in watching _Mythbusters_ on the Discovery Channel. It went from Deidara changing the channel during commercials to Kisame trying to hoard the remote to Deidara setting Kisame's hair on fire with Boomer to…

"I'll _kill _you, you little girly-man!" Kisame roared, quickly batting the fire out with one hand while he dove for Deidara's throat with the other. The two men tumbled off onto the floor, and soon the majority of the living room had been mercilessly trashed in the wake of yet another mega-brawl.

Upstairs, Itachi's left hand flinched as he moved to pick up another pawn. Sasori noted the flinch and waited until he heard the faint crashing sounds coming from downstairs before he very innocently suggested, "Should we just call this one a draw and go downstairs to save your furniture?"

Itachi glared and slammed his pawn down rather viciously before growling, "Your move." Sasori shrugged and started figuring out what his next move would _be_. He knew better than to argue with a pissed-off Itachi — he _was _a genius, after all.

From his bedroom, Sasuke heard the sounds of furniture being smashed all to hell and groaned. Why, _why _couldn't they get their own apartment or something? He pushed away from his desk (and the last three questions standing between him and a work-free suspension), walked over to his CD player, and turned the music up from three to eleven. This done and the violent lyrics of Disturbed blaring in his room, the younger Uchiha sat back down and _finally _finished his homework.

Deidara and Kisame, meanwhile, had moved out of the decimated living room and were now wreaking havoc on the kitchen. Unfortunately, this gave Deidara a bit of an edge over his much larger opponent, as Deidara was an excellent aim when it came to throwing things and happened to be positioned within reach of the steak knives. Kisame realized this and ran the hell out of the kitchen, followed by a deadly hail of sharp, pointy things and the maniacal cackling of an enraged blond manly-woman.

"Die, Fishy, die!" Deidara yelled, charging after his blue friend with a steak knife in one hand and Boomer in the other. The two were just running towards the downstairs landing when Sasuke came running downstairs to tell them to shut up; neither party saw the danger until it was too late to stop, and the result was a swearing, stabbing, kicking, screaming, flaming (though that last one was more Kisame's hair again than anyone else) jumble of bodies that came to a halt only when all three men hit the wall between the living room and the garage.

"Well, that was fun, hm," Deidara said cheerfully as he picked himself off the floor. He was the lucky one; he'd landed back-first against the wall and had slid to his butt. Sasuke was propped upside-down against the wall, his arms stretched out along the edge of the wall and his legs hanging down over his everything-else. Kisame's flaming hair was no longer flaming — mostly because he'd landed head-first _through _the wall. Deidara noticed Kisame's preoccupation and lit his rear end on fire, cackling gleefully when the resulting flailing beat Sasuke senseless.

"I think we should go downstairs and see what's going on," Sasori suggested again as he noted the way Itachi's right eye had begun to twitch. "I hear screaming. And psychotic cackling."

"It's probably nothing," Itachi said through his teeth. Somehow he still sounded very, very calm.

Both men continued to play until they heard what _sounded _like the oven exploding. Itachi was already out the door and halfway downstairs by the time Sasori finished sighing and getting out of his chair. This wasn't going to be pretty…

**»»««**

"Okay, c'mon," Amatsu grumbled as she dialed Deidara's number for the _third _time. "There won't be pizza _or _sushi if you don't hurry up and answer your stupid—"

"_AMATSU! HELP!" _Deidara screeched over the phone. Amatsu shrieked and nearly dropped her phone on Sakura's head; the trio (and Mr. Fluffers) had finally settled down and started watching Cupcake Wars by this point. Sakura and Ino were sitting on the floor — something about the show sparked their competitive streaks, and now they had active bets on who would win.

"Everything okay, Amatsu?" Sakura asked, turning to look up at the brunette.

"Completely," Amatsu giggled nervously. "I'm just going to go out into the garage for a second. Okay?"

"Sounds good to me." And with that the rosette was focused on the television again.

Amatsu giggled again and clapped a hand over the speaker on her phone as she made her way out to the garage. Only when she'd closed the door and flicked the weak lights on did she put the phone back to her ear and yell, "Shut up for a second and tell me what's wrong!"

"_Itachi's trying to kill us, hm!" _Deidara wailed. There was a yelp and the sound of someone's fist hitting a wall close to the phone. _"Come over here and save us, hm!"_

"Is Sasuke there?" Amatsu asked. "I'm not coming over if he is."

"_HIS BROTHER'S TRYING TO KILL US AND YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND BEING HERE?" _Kisame must have stolen the phone for a second… or Itachi had finally managed to hit Deidara.

"Yes, I am," Amatsu told him curtly.

"_(CENSORED) YOU, AMA— NOT THE CHAIR!"_ Well, apparently Deidara had remained conscious long enough to grab the phone back and get hit by a chair. Amatsu winced as she heard said chair break over someone's head. Itachi didn't buy flimsy dollar-store chairs.

"Put the phone on speaker," the brunette ordered, hoping someone had the phone and could hear her.

"_It's on, IT'S ON!" _Kisame wailed. Another chair must have been thrown, because after the breaking noise it sounded like the phone had clattered onto a tile floor.

"Itachi, stop killing Deidara," Amatsu told him, hoping the enraged Uchiha would hear her over the slaughter. "I need a driver."

"_GOOD TO SEE WHAT _MY _VALUE IS, HM!" _Deidara yelled somewhere in the background. It sounded like someone kicked him.

"_They trashed my house." _For all he was trying to maim them, Itachi sounded completely tranquil. Cheerful, even. _"I'm simply teaching them manners."_

"If the lesson makes Deidara unable to drive, I might have to hurt you," Amatsu retorted. "I have a pair of psychotic females to feed. I'm afraid they might turn rabid otherwise."

There was a short, quiet sigh, and then Itachi told her, _"Fine, Deidara will be there soon. You're at the pink-haired girl's house, right?"_

"Yes, that's right," she told him.

"_He'll be there in about five minutes." _There was a click, and then the line went dead. Amatsu ended the call shook her head sympathetically, and trudged back inside, flicking the lights back off as she went.

To Deidara's credit, he was there two minutes faster than Itachi had guessed. It was probably the fact that he was early that terrified Amatsu so much when she saw the headlights light up the curtain; the brunette barely swallowed a yelp before the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," she offered before Sakura or Ino could get up. _Better me than one of you if it's who I hope it isn't, _she added silently. She jumped over the back of the couch and ran to the door, nearly fainting with relief when she threw it open and saw a very battered and bruised Deidara standing on the porch. One eye was already blacked and swollen half-shut, and it looked like he'd bit his tongue somehow. Not to mention the goose-egg on his forehead and the nicks and bruises on his arms…

"Uh, aren't you cold?" Amatsu asked, stepping out and closing the door behind her. "You could have at least thrown n something warmer than a sleeveless tee-shirt."

"I hate you, hm," he grumbled as she followed him out to the Taurus. Amatsu shrugged; apparently he hadn't thought of that.

"Why, exactly, was Itachi trying to kill you?" Amatsu asked as she climbed into the passenger seat. "I mean, you've trashed his house before — what'd you do, break the living room TV?"

"Worse, apparently, hm." Deidara scowled at the steering wheel for a minute. "We broke his sound system. That new one we all pitched in to get him for his birthday."

"Who's 'we'?" Amatsu asked. She yelped and hastily clicked her seatbelt in place as Deidara zoomed onto the road. "Who all trashed the thing?"

"Me'n Kisame, hm," he answered. Then he grinned wickedly and added, "But mostly Kisame. I set his pants on fire and he tried to beat the flames out by running into walls and furniture, hm."

"And you wonder why Itachi has such a bad temper."

Fortunately, the sushi- and pizza places were still open, and Amatsu was able to grab ahi for Sakura and a personal pepperoni pizza for Ino. Since she was in and out of the truck so much for this part, Deidara didn't have time to notice or comment on the somewhat harried look on Amatsu's face. The drive to and through the McDonald's drive-thru, however, was another story.

"What's on your mind, hm?" the blond asked while they were waiting in line. "You look worried, hm."

"Nah," Amatsu said, flapping a hand at him. "I'm just dreading going back to the psychos — how their cat manages to stay sane, I have no idea."

"Poor hairball, hm," Deidara chuckled. He hated cats; they always played in his hair, tried to eat his clay sculptures, smutched his paintings, broke his CDs… The blond had no sympathy for poor Mr. Fluffers.

"You don't care," Amatsu laughed. She reached over and snagged his hairband out — not a hard thing to do, considering most of his hair had fallen loose during the brawl and subsequent maiming… I mean "lesson in manners".

"Hey, hm!" he yelped. "Give that back!"

"Like it's messing up your hair any," Amatsu snorted, handing the rubber band back anyway. "You looked like a zombie. A Pantene-using zombie, but a zombie nonetheless. I was merely drawing attention to that fact."

Deidara grumbled under his breath and somehow managed to inch the truck forward while using both hands to fix his hair, something that both unnerved and impressed Amatsu, who was still in the process of learning to drive at all.

**»»««**

"FOOD!" Sakura and Ino chorused as Amatsu stumbled through the door, her arms loaded with — as they had already noted — lots of food.

"Sushi for Sakura," Amatsu grunted, handing the rosette her sushi. Sakura squealed with glee and charged back to her spot in front of the TV. "A personal pizza — loaded with pepperoni — for Ino." Ino yanked the pizza out of Amatsu's arms and zipped back to her place next to Sakura. "And Mickie D's for me." Amatsu was much more graceful now that she wasn't holding about fifty pounds of food, and quietly took her place on the couch next to Mr. Fluffers.

_What about me? _Mr. Fluffers growled, looking at Amatsu with righteous indignation. _Don't I get anything? I thought we were cool!_

Amatsu waved the patty of a Mickie D's fish fillet in front of him; he snagged the patty from her hand and had the thing scarfed down in minutes.

_That's better, _he purred. Then he curled up and promptly went to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note: Sorry about the less-than-awesome sleepover. As I have no social life. I'm not entirely sure what all goes on at those things. And this is not the end of dark shady man of doom — Amatsu is in a pickle, isn't she?**

**As I stated earlier, I've been gone so long I forgot whose character I was going to put into my fic. If it's your character, help!**

**(Some side notes: Bisgon is pronounced BYE-gun, and is a river that cuts my hometown in half. The chapter title is the title to a Breaking Benjamin song, and the lyrics are from "What Lies Beneath," which is another Breaking Benjamin song. Both refer to Amatsu.)**


End file.
